UGHTAND SHAPE 





Glass. 
Book. 



LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 





The Camel got us there. 



LIGHT AND SHADE 
IN WAR 

By 
CAPTAIN MALCOLM ROSS 

i* 

Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces 
(Author of "A Climber in New Zealand," etc.) 

And 

NOEL ROSS 

Of The Times (lately Lance-Corporal with the Anzacs 
and Lieutenant Territorial Artillery) 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO 
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD 
1916 

All rights reserved 






It it is not we who fare afield 

Into the realms of war 
That needs must have our hearts annealed 

To death, or wound, or jar ; 
But those who give the last embrace, 
And slow their lonely steps retrace. 

Brave hearts that showed no fear t 
Fond eyes that shed no tear, 
Our hearts with theirs in unison 

Will beat howe'er we roam, 
For each loved one our benison — 

The Brave who stayed at home. 



.16$$ 






To 
The One 

Who Waited : 

WITH 
ALL 

Our Love 



PREFACE 

nr^HE authors of this book, father and son, 
-■- have seen much of the Light and Shade of 
War during the past two years, the one as a War 
Correspondent in Egypt, Turkey and France, the 
other as a soldier, and, afterwards, as one of the 
staff of The Times. 

The day for writing the histories of our different 
campaigns is not yet. For the purposes of history 
delay is necessary, even though the gain in per- 
spective may mean loss in colour. But there is 
a legitimate desire for the intimate and immediate 
impressions of the time, written down amid the 
ever-shifting scenes of the War itself. Such 
impressions will have some value now, and perhaps 
also in after years. 

Most of these sketches were written whilst the 

scenes and incidents they depict were fresh in the 

mind ; some under fire. The proofs were corrected 

on the battlefield of the Sommein a tent over which 

British and German shells were passing at the time. 

While due allowance will be made for shortcomings 

vii 



Vlll 



PREFACE 



owing to the circumstances under which the book 
was produced, the authors hope that no apology 
will be needed for presenting such pictures of the 
Light and Shade of War to the English-speaking 
World. 

They wish to express their thanks to the 
proprietors of Punch for the right to republish 
"Abdul," "The Grist House," and "Benevolent 
Neutrality." The following are included by 
courtesy of The Times : — " The Landing," " Oak- 
Apple Day," " St. Paul's and the Abbey," " Lon- 
don Ghosts," " Men of the Glen," " The Home 
of My Fathers," " Tipirere," " Groups in Camp," 
"Golfers from the Sea," "The Coast-Guard, " 
"The Battle Cruisers," " Building the Warships," 
"Playing the Bye." The article "A Kneeling 
Hamlet " is from the pen of " The One who 
Stayed at Home," and appeared first in The 
Times. 

August 4, 1916. 



CONTENTS 



The Last Load 

Benevolent Neutrality 

The Landing 

Abdul: an Appreciation 

Two Letters 

In the Track of the Troops 

The Ground we Won 

The Edge of the Barley Field 

On the Fringes of War . 

Abodes of an Anzac . 

Good-bye to Abdul . 

Into the Desert 

The Blooding of the Battalion 

St. Paul's and the Abbey 

Oak-Apple Day 

The Man with the Fearless Eyes 

London Ghosts .... 

Men of the Glen 

The Home of my Fathers . 

ix 



PAGE 
I 

8 

13 
23 
27 
36 

45 
54 
61 
68 
86 

93 
103 
108 
114 
118 
124 
128 
133 



x CONTENTS 






PAGE 


" TlPIRERE " ...... 


• 139 


The New Trek 


• 144 


HOW THE ANZACS CAME TO FRANCE 


. 150 


The Spirit of a Nation . 


. 158 


Behind the Lines . 


. 167 


Groups in Camp ...... 


. 172 


A Cheerful Army 


. 176 


Battle Sounds . . . ... 


. 183 


An Interlude in War . . . . 


. 189 


Five Men from London 


. 196 


The Raiders 


. 200 


Launching the Great Attack . 


. 215 


Fricourt and La Boiselle. 


. 222 


Golfers from the Sea 


• 233 


The Coast-Guard .... 


. 238 


The Battle Cruisers 


. 243 


Building the Warships 


. 251 


The Grist House .... 


. 259 


Playing the Bye .... 


. 265 


The Kneeling Hamlet 


. 269 


The Unburied ..... 


• 273 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Camel got us there 




Frontispiece 


Where Napoleon mounted his Guns . 


To face p. 


34 


The Last Load . 


>} 


52^ 


Graves on Gallipoli . 






t 


52 


Abodes of an Anzac . 






i 


69 


The Chateau Pericles 






f 


82, 


The Hot Pools in the Ti-Tree . 






y 


142^ 


The Gun astern was ready 






> 


152 


In the Track of the Caravans 






>> 


152 / 


The Silver Sausage . 


• 




>> 


188. 


The Heights of Anzac 






>> 


188 ' 



THE LAST LOAD 

ON days when bullets fell like heavy hail, and 
shrapnel and high explosive came tearing 
through the air towards trench and pier and bivouac, 
one watched with curious interest the sweating 
stretcher-bearers with straining thews carrying their 
inert burdens down the narrow paths of the deres 
to the dressing-stations, and from the latter to the 
Casualty Clearing Stations. One saw also, with a 
sadness relieved by their uncomplaining bravery, 
the line of blood-stained wounded marching slowly 
along the winding, dusty sap to the jetties where the 
motor-launch was waiting to take them to the safer 
haven of the Hospital Ships. The badly wounded 
and the very sick were carried down under cover of 
the darkness. The Sea of Saros in its summer 
calm reflected the graceful lines of these ships 
floating between the blue of a cloudless sky and the 
deeper blue of the glassy water. In the night-time 
their lights sent shimmering lines of red and green 
and gold towards the shore — beckoning fingers to 
the sick and wounded. There was always a ship, 
sometimes two or three ships, there, waiting — wait- 
ing for its load from the wreckage of the battlefield. 

3 B 



2 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

As soon as one went another took its place. Imagi- 
nation followed them to the outer islands and the 
other lands where they unloaded their battered 
freight, and wondered how many moons would come 
and go before they steamed away with their last 
load. The day came much sooner than we expected. 

On a grey morning, with the smoke of our burn- 
ing stores rising in a straight column and mingling 
with the mists that shrouded the heights of the 
Peninsula, two war correspondents, whose home had 
been at Anzac and No. 2 Outpost, left the shores 
of Anzac for the last time to witness from a warship 
the closing scenes of the great drama. Looking 
back at the receding outlines of the high land loom- 
ing through the smoke and mist above the leaden 
water one remembered the broad atmospheric 
effects of Turner : the dim blurred efforts of Whistler. 
Out of the greyness the warship itself appeared 
suddenly as a spectral form. The little pinnace 
came almost to a dead stop under the great white- 
painted hull of an Allan liner — a hospital ship 
awaiting her last load. It was the fate of one of the 
war correspondents to watch the closing scene from 
a port-hole in this ship, the while the Officers' 
Ward slowly filled with sick and wounded. 

It was Sunday — day of battles — and while the 
Padre was cheering the sick, and the doctors and 
nurses were dressing the wounded, enemy shells were 
bursting in our trenches. The Turks had blown 
up a mine and were " strafing " Hill 60. The 
Apex got its share, and Suvla too. Our own de- 



THE LAST LOAD 3 

pleted batteries made feeble reply, for it was the 
" last day " and nearly all the guns had gone. 
All this one could see dimly through the greyness. 
Abdul — unaware of the fact — was sending us our 
last load. 

It came as a sad surprise to find two of one's own 
friends already in the cots occupied by the wounded. 
One, hard hit with shrapnel, was struggling bravely 
against the Grim Warrior who so often settles the 
accounts of wounded soldiers. But a few hours 
before, we had laughingly said good-bye to one 
another at Anzac, promising ourselves a good time 
in Egypt, or England, or wherever we were going 
to in the near future. Brave fellow ! He almost 
won through. 

By noon the Officers' Ward began to fill. Two 
Gurkhas — the one moaning, the other sadly silent 
and still — headed the procession. They were 
victims of the explosion on Hill 60. The little 
Subadar, in great pain, fought with his hands — they 
were small, like a woman's — as they lifted him 
from stretcher to cot. Following these two came 
other wounded, and some sick. These sick had 
been fighting disease and doctors in a vain hope 
that they might be with the " Diehards " at the 
finish. One was an Anzac Battalion Commander — 
a man who had seen the world. Straining his 
memory for a few Indian phrases learnt in the long 
ago he tried to calm the wounded Subadar. He 
could not rest in his own bed, but wandered through 
the ward, going from cot to cot, gazing at each 



4 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

patient very much as a curious robin might look 
at objects that were strange to him. To the doctor 
who questioned him he said he was quite well. But 
another Anzac officer told us the true story. He had 
been wounded in the landing and wounded again — 
riddled, the officer called it — in the Lone Pine affair. 
You will remember that there were seven V.C.'s for 
Lone Pine. Shipped to England he had finally 
broken loose from the doctors, paid his passage 
back to Egypt, and rejoined his battalion on Gal- 
lipoli. But the strain had been too great. Wounds 
and sickness had told their tale. He had broken 
down at the finish. The word " debility " had 
been written opposite his name. 

The Officers' Ward filled slowly until darkness 
descended upon us. Through the port-hole we 
could see on the hills the well-remembered beacon 
lamps — signals beyond which the Navy could shoot 
at night. A few fights still glimmered in the dug- 
outs of the almost depopulated Corps and Divisional 
Headquarters. Fitful gleams from incinerators 
pierced the darkness, and the great glow of the 
still burning provision depot illumined the sky. 

Time passed and the ship's wireless buzzed the 
signal for departure. The anchor chain rattled. 
The screws began to turn, and the ship steamed 
slow ahead, carrying her last load across the Gulf of 
Saros. 

There had been no Turkish attack : there were 
still empty cots in the Hospital Ships ; the evacua- 
tion was almost at an end ! Fed and washed, and 



THE LAST LOAD 5 

with their wounds dressed, the patients, one by 
one, fell into the troubled sleep that is their lot. 
Even " Debility " was in the land of dreams. The 
wakeful, with all their recent hopes and fears now 
behind them, lay thinking — listening the while to 
the slow, monotonous throb of the engines and the 
soothing swish of water along the ship's side. The 
night nurse — a tall, bright, capable English girl — 
went quietly through the ward, smoothing a pillow 
here, talking softly to a restless patient there. 

The Subadar awoke with a moan and a cry of 
" Water ! Water ! " The sister was quickly at 
his side. In his delirium his little brown hand 
gripped her slender arm with all its power. The 
grip hurt, but she bore it uncomplainingly, as she 
tried to calm her patient. 

Over the other Indian a doctor, with another 
sister in attendance, was bending thoughtfully, 
listening. For this one there was nothing more 
to be done. They lowered the curtains from the 
brass rods above his cot, and left him there with 
a light brightly burning. He had never once 
spoken. Unconsciously, and without a moan, he 
had passed into the Unknown. The Reaper had 
claimed his last toll from the Hill : he had lightened 
the last load from the Peninsula. When, far into 
the night, we looked again, the cot was empty. 
Then the slow throb of the engines became still 
slower, the swish of little waves along the ship's 
side died away. There was a splash in the dark 
water ! The fire- bars at his feet were carrying him 



6 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

down — one more body to dot the line of sleeping 
soldiers marking the ways of the white ships from 
Gallipoli to Lemnos, to Malta, to Alexandria — 
even to Mother England. On the floor of the sea 
these lines still lie, with the dim shadows of the 
submarines passing over them, after all the living 
have sailed away. It was not only on the heights 
of Anzac that our gallant dead found sepulture. 
Yet would we fain believe that not one life had 
been given, not one drop of blood shed in vain. 

The other Indian, knowing nothing of all this, 
had fallen asleep, and quiet reigned once more in 
the ward. The silence was broken with the strong 
voice of command — 

" Get that gun ! Get that gun ! " 

It was the voice of " Debility." He was fighting 
his battles over again in dreamland. One pictured 
the scene — the brave Anzacs leaving their trench : 
charging forward to almost certain death ; the usual 
machine guns on the flanks mowing them down ; 
then the enemy trench — bombs and the bayonet ! 
Moving quickly but quietly through the ward the 
sister was at his side soothing him back to slumber. 
Then silence reigned again. There was not even a 
moan. It was weirdly uncanny. In less than ten 
minutes the quiet was broken with another ringing 
command — 

" Hang on the Force ! Hang on the Force ! 
Steady there, men ! Stick it out ! " 

Yes, without a doubt, it was Lone Pine. He had 
won his trench and was holding it. But there was a 



THE LAST LOAD 7 

fringe of dead along the parapet, and a thousand 
dead — friend and foe — inside the trench. The 
seven V.C.'s — aye, many more — had been honourably 
won. 

When dawn had come we were once more at 
anchor, and the cirque of brown hills that rise 
above the Lemnos harbour lay around us. Five 
hundred sick and wounded that had been transferred 
to a trooper from this same ship in the earlier 
stages of the evacuation were now re-embarked. 
Again the anchor chain rattled in the winch, and 
this time the ship headed, full speed, for Egypt. 

A little less than two days brought us into port 
again. The two New Zealanders in the Officers' 
Ward parted company, for they were going into 
different hospitals. The sorely stricken one was 
still brave and cheerful. They said good-bye, 
promising each other a dinner at Shepheard's in the 
near future. But that dinner, like many another 
promised dinner in the great war, was never eaten. 
Opposite the name of the one, next day, appeared 
the three words that have meant tears in many a 
distant home — " Died of wounds." The big letter 
of credit that he had been solicitous about did not 
matter now. The little Bible, " with love to 
Daddy," written in the half-formed hand of a little 
child, perhaps did. While the ship lay empty at 
the quay he had set out, smiling, on his great 
journey. He had come bravely through with the 
last load. 



BENEVOLENT NEUTRALITY 

I KNOW a man who was ten months at the Front 
dodging coal-boxes and " Black Marias." He 
came home last month and broke his leg trying to 
dodge a perambulator at Hyde Park Corner. My 
case is somewhat similar. At Gallipoli I dodged 
dysentery, jaundice and kindred ills, but at last I 
met my fate. A few days ago I was vaguely con- 
scious of a nagging pain under the two back buttons 
of my trousers and in my left knee and foot. I told 
the Adjutant and found him interested but not 
sympathetic. 

" You've got sciatica," he said exultingly. " Do 
you feel tired in the small of your back ? Have you 
pains in your hip and down your legs, and aches 
in your feet ? " 

I confessed to all these symptoms. 

" Ah ! " he said, " shocking thing that. Had an 
aunt who died of it once. Plays the deuce with a 
man of your age. You had better see the Doc. 
right away. He'll get a board fixed up for you." 

He pushed the bell and the mess corporal ap- 
peared. 

" Bring me a long whisky," he said. 

" Me, too," I murmured. 
8 



BENEVOLENT NEUTRALITY 9 

The Adjutant looked aghast. " Whisky with 
sciatica ! " he exclaimed. 

" No, with soda," I said. 

" All right," said he, " it's your funeral." 

The next day the doctor came and gloated over 
me. " Does that hurt ? " he asked, sticking a 
stubby thumb into the small of my back. 

He looked resentfully at me as he picked himself 
up from the floor. 

"I'm sorry," I told him, " but I was scarcely 
ready for that." 

" You can be boarded to-morrow," he said as he 
left hurriedly. 

I was boarded, and got a month's leave and 
some advice. I was told to go to one Friedenborg 
for massage, and I went. 

Friedenborg proved to be a pleasant-faced Swede, 
but his looks belied him. The Grand Inquisitors 
of Spain were novices to him. He ushered me into 
a small room and in an unguarded moment I allowed 
myself to be divested of all clothing and laid face 
downwards on a velvet couch. I hate velvet at 
any time. The touch of velvet or peach-skins is 
enough to make my teeth go on edge all down my 
back. 

The Swede stood over me with the expression of 
Jack Johnson just before he hit up the Bowery Pet 
at Bashville, Illinois. 

" I think this is the place," he said as he made a 
savage jab at the back of my thigh. 

" I can feel it," I said as I came down on the sofa 



io LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

again. I made up my mind not to let him see my 
true feelings and composed myself to die as an 
English gentleman should, although it hurt my 
pride to meet my end at the hands of a neutral. 

Presently he brought out a table with an instru- 
ment upon it like an overgrown dentist's drill. 
At the end of a cable were two hard rubber balls. 
These he put on the middle of my back and then 
turned over a switch. 

"It is a vibrator," he hissed between his teeth. 
I had almost guessed it myself, but I did not argue. 

Shutting my eyes I could easily imagine myself 
in a London bus, and if any one had called, " Fares, 
please," I'd have felt for my pocket, which wasn't 
there. Just when I was getting used to the thing 
he stopped. " Marble Arch ? " I hazarded, but he 
was in no mood for humour. He got to work with 
his hands. 

First of all he kneaded my hip- joint into a soft 
dough, which he pulled out into strings like an 
American shop-girl with her chewing-gum. Then 
he let them go again like loosened pieces of elastic. 
He burrowed in amongst my joints like a terrier 
at a rabbit-hole, all the time giving little grunts of 
satisfaction when I jumped. Soon I got wiser, 
and when he hurt most I lay still, and jumped when 
he got on to a comparatively painless spot. By 
this simple stratagem I contrived to keep him busy 
without disappointing him or depriving him of his 
exercise. I rather wished he had been a real in- 
quisitor, for I would have become a Brahmin or 



BENEVOLENT NEUTRALITY n 

even a Buff Orpington to have him stop. Any old 
creed would have done me if he would only have 
left me alone. 

Then a galling thought crossed my mind. I was 
paying him to do all this, and only the week before 
I had sworn off theatres because I considered them 
extravagant in war-time. 

Presently he transferred his attentions to my 
spine. He played at being a devout monk, using 
my vertebrae as a rosary. He took each of them 
separately and ran them along my spinal cord like 
beads on a Chinese abacus, clicking them together. 

In between the more strenuous efforts he dis- 
coursed on the war. " The Germans will soon 
begin to feel the pinch," he said suddenly as he 
grabbed a handful of flesh from my back. 

" If it's a pinch like that I almost feel sorry for 
them," I thought. 

" But is this blockade stopping their food ? " he 
demanded, as he ran a row of horny knuckles up my 
back. 

" Ah," I said, " there's the rub." 

He discoursed on the Western offensive, and gave 
an imitation of trench-digging on my hip-joint. 
Then he talked about mining and ran out a whole 
series of deep saps from my ankle to my knee, 
counter-mining on the other leg until he ended with 
an explosive burst that would have destroyed a 
whole battalion. I bit hard into the wooden head- 
rail of the sofa for the rest of the seance, and at last 
he finished. 



12 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

Before I knew what was happening he had booked 
another appointment for the next day. 

Since then I have been again many times, and 
all my pains have fled. The little devils in charge 
of the sciatica department gave it best, and realized 
that the Swede was their master. My mental out- 
look has changed also, for at first I prayed nightly 
that England would declare war on Sweden. Now 
I am grateful, and fully recognize the meaning of a 
benevolent neutrality. 



THE LANDING 

rHE following grim and characteristic story of the 
landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula — five days of 
hell, as he himself calls it — is told by a New Zealander 
who took part in the fighting. In a covering letter the 
writer says : " I have had my second turn with the 
1 unspeakable Turk ' and as a result am in hospital with 
a wrecked spine and rather a badly tangled set of nerves, 
caused through concussion from a shell and a fall. 
The enclosed is perhaps crude, but I made rather 
an effort to write it, and Nurse says ' never again ' — 
for a while anyhow." 

The " enclosed " is probably the most vivid personal 
narrative of the Gallipoli fighting which has yet reached 
this country. — The Times. 

A MILITARY HOSPITAL, CAIRO, 

May 5. 

A glass flat sea covered with a shallow mist, and 
beyond, the tops of green hills peering through 
the vapour, dim shapes of warboats and transports, 
and a fleeting glimpse of a seaplane as it winged 
over the Turkish positions : this was the scene 

13 



14 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

that met our eyes on the morning of April 25 when 
we approached the peninsula of Gallipoli. Drown- 
ing the noise of the winches in our transport there 
rose and fell the thunderous arpeggio of the heavy 
guns, ceaseless in its monotonous roar, but, as we 
drew nearer, relieved by the staccato crack of the 
bursting Turkish shrapnel and the plunge of the 
heavier shell in the water amongst the transports. 

As we approached the shore there came to our 
ears the continuous rattle of musketry, first scarcely 
perceptible, but at last growing to an ear-racking 
roll as of giant kettle-drums beaten without reason. 
Through glasses I could see one of our skirmishing 
lines advancing from the boats on the beach. It 
was as though one watched a cinematograph screen. 
The white boats on the beach and some brown 
figures sadly still on the grey sand, the green grass, 
and a tilled field across which advanced lines of our 
attacking force formed the foreground. Steep 
hills, clay faced and covered with dense scrub and 
dwarf ilex, over which the cottonwool puffs of 
shrapnel appeared and disappeared, made the back- 
ground. 

Business-like and brisk a destroyer glided along- 
side our transport towing strings of heavy barges. 

" What's it like over there ? " we asked. 

" Pretty warm, boy/' answered a smiling gunner, 
" but they're on the run." 

Straight to the beach we ran, to the foot of the 
hill, but the destroyer necessarily could not take us 
right in to the sand, and we lay smiling sickly smiles 



THE LANDING 15 

at each other as the bullets purred and whistled 
over and round us. The sharp-pointed bullet 
" meows " like a motherless kitten as it passes 
you, but it enters the water with a " phut " that 
suggests something more unpleasant. 

At last the barges were taken as far in as possible 
and we jumped into water up to our armpits and 
half swam, half waded ashore. I had often won- 
dered how one would feel going into a tight corner 
for the first time, and then I knew. It was as if 
some one had given me a smack below the chest 
with the flat of a heavy spade. Later came a sense 
of elation. 

Formed up we marched along the beach past 
dressing-stations already hemmed in with stretchers 
and wounded men. An Australian and a sailor 
lay beneath an oil sheet, their feet in the little waves. 

" Reinforcements at the double on the left," 
roared an officer through a megaphone, and then 
added as a shell burst overhead, " Keep in under 
the bank — shrapnel's unhealthy." 

Then came a toilsome, tiresome scramble over 
the high bluffs to the firing line. On the top of the 
first ridge we came through a Turkish trench. In it 
were a dead Turk, bayoneted, a box of ammunition, 
and many flies. Stooping low we doubled to the 
brow, ever with the purring bullets overhead. 
Wounded on the way to the beach passed us cheer- 
fully, saying, " It's hot as hell up there ! " And 
it was. When we had crossed a gully and gained 
another ridge, half an hour's scrambling and sliding, 



16 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

we were scarce 200 yards from the last, so steep is the 
ground. 

Snipers were everywhere, and as we made one 
descent of about 100 feet, at an angle of about 10 
degrees past 90, bullets spattered about on the 
stones and in the bushes round us. I struck a shingle 
slide and my downfall was expedited. 

At the bottom I saw a wounded man bleeding 
badly over one shoulder. He grinned hideously 
with his shattered mouth. " Got it where the 
chicken got the axe," he wheezed, and fainted as 
the stretcher-bearers came up for him. 

And so on, up to the firing line, where I got 
separated from my own unit and found ranges, that 
being my job, for an Australian regiment. Through 
the powerful telescope of the range-finder I could 
see the Turkish retirement and then an embryo 
bayonet charge by some of our men. Still the 
wounded came back in apparently endless pro- 
cession. They were wonderful, cheerful, and full 
of information and profanity. 

Then in our trench things began to happen. 
Personally I think a sniper spotted the range-finder, 
for two bullets lobbed into the trench parapet and 
then the man next to me stood straight up and 
fell i back over my legs. " Mafeesh," he said 
quaintly, the Arabic for finished, and then more 
slowly, " Money-belt — missus and kids — dirty 
swine, dirty " 

Then a strange thing happened. Dying, shattered 
beyond recognition, he rose to his knees and dragged 



THE LANDING 17 

his rifle to the parapet. With a weak finger he 
took shaky aim at the sky and fired his last 
shot, to collapse finally in the bottom of the 
trench. 

Obviously the Turks had our range, for things 
began to get too hot for comfort. Those who were 
left of us changed position about a hundred yards 
along the trench, one of the Australians first resting 
a dead man's hat on a bush on the trench parapet. 
" Got our range/' he said laconically, " better let 
'em have a little target practice." They did, for the 
hat only stayed there five minutes. 

Then we spotted our sniper. Have you ever 
gone stalking in open country with only dry water- 
courses or stone slides as cover and a Royal smelling 
danger on the slope opposite ? It was rather like 
that. 

Two of our men crept from the trench and crawled 
out of sight through the bushes. All unconscious 
the Turk continued his rifle practice until a double 
report rang out and our two men appeared on 
our left waving the sniper's hat — their equivalent 
of a scalp. After that we had comparative 
peace. 

Away to the right a machine gun, like a motor- 
cycle, purred incessantly, and then one started 
nearer and to our front. A seaplane from the Ark 
Royal, anchored in the bay behind, soared overhead, 
and twice white puffs of shrapnel appeared below 
her, where the Turks lobbed two shells. It is 
rather like shooting at a rocketing pheasant, this 



18 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

aeroplane-potting, and has about the same result. 
Then she turned and went back to report. 

Something was due to arrive and it did, suddenly, 
in the shape of a naval shell. First came the ear- 
and-nerve-shattering roar of the gun, then the 
shriek of the shell overhead, and away in front a 
cloud of smoke and earth rose slowly and drifted 
away, showing a gap in the skyline and a few 
Turks, who obviously recollected that it was about 
time to start for the last train to Gallipoli. Away 
they went out of sight, and then the naval guns 
started in earnest. 

From the bay below came one continuous thunder, 
and the screech of the heavy projectiles was inces- 
sant. No sooner had one burst than another was 
on its way. 

Presently the 15-inchers started and we tore 
up some " pull-through " rag to put in our ears. 
Commands, unless shouted, were unintelligible 
now, and one felt ridiculous yelling against such 
thunderous voices. Below in the bay a warship 
was firing salvoes from her 6-inch battery. Puffs 
of brown smoke would jet from the bulwarks, and 
then, a long while afterwards, the roll of reports 
would shake the hills. 

Then the enemy's guns joined in the argument. 
Shrapnel began to burst above us, and the whistle 
of the flying bullets was everywhere. The brass 
nose of a howitzer shell struck from nowhere upon 
a mound in front and rolled into the trench. I 
burned my fingers picking it up. For three hours 



THE LANDING 19 

this violent cannonading lasted and then it gave place 
to a more desultory, but still severe, bombard- 
ment. 

We had gained our footing, at heavy cost it is 
true, but at least a mile square of the Gallipoli 
Peninsula was ours, and Von der Goltz Pasha was 
proved a liar. Back on the beach stores were be- 
ginning to come in. Horses, donkeys, and mules 
were landed and ammunition reserves grew as one 
watched. Men were carrying water to the firing 
line, ammunition and oil for the machine guns. 
On every path the stretcher-bearers toiled with 
their sad loads, and wounded waited patiently in 
little knots by the dressing-stations, laughing, 
chatting, and cheering each other. Sweating under 
the hot sun the doctors worked like machines, 
probing, washing, bandaging. Often the hurts were 
beyond aid, and a handkerchief covered the face of 
one man I had known as a cheery optimist on board 
the transport. The Brigadier- General in khaki 
shirt and neat riding breeches was sending off in- 
numerable messages — cool, ubiquitous, and busi- 
ness-like, he inspired others to emulate him. 

Wonder of wonders ! We had been ashore only 
six hours when three wireless stations sprang up 
mushroom-like on the beach, and their buzzing 
sparks told the warships just how and where to 
send their screaming missiles. Troops continued 
to land, and as soon as they were landed were 
rushed to the firing line, usually to the left, for the 
right was well held and safe for the time. 



20 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

At nightfall the bombardment ceased, but Turkish 
shrapnel burst over the beach and the wounded 
in the boats were submitted to a hot shell fire. The 
rifle fire continued, nerve-racking and noisy. Sleep 
was out of the question, and trench digging, to con- , 
solidate the position we had won, commenced almost 
immediately. 

On our left along the beach about half a mile, 
a boat, sunk in the surf, rocked uneasily. With the 
aid of a glass I could see its freight. Sitting upright 
were at least eight dead men, and on the beach 
another twenty. A sailor, distinguishable by his 
white cap cover, lay in an attitude strangely lifelike, 
his chin resting on his hand, his face turned to our 
position. The next afternoon I casually turned my 
glasses on the pathetic group, and saw that the sailor 
was now lying on his back with his face to the sky. 
There was no mistake : he had been alive, and 
perhaps even now, after lying there nearly thirty- 
six hours, he was still alive. I was destined to get 
yet another thrill. In the centre of the heap on the 
beach there was some movement. 

And then I saw distinctly a khaki cap waving 
weakly, and presently a man detached himself 
from the group and hobbled slowly towards us along 
the beach. Immediately the snipers started afresh. 

Four other men and myself made off along the 
beach to meet the sad figure, which by this time 
had collapsed. Ten yards out from our trench we 
drew fire, and the bullets whispered confidingly 
" Duck," and as they entered the water or hit 



THE LANDING 21 

the stones by our feet, " Run like the devil ! " I 
personally cut out the first hundred yards in well 
under eleven seconds, and although my style might 
have been ragged, it was good enough and got me 
to a small sandy knoll where I was able to talk to the 
man. There were four others still alive out there, 
he said, and " last night there were eight, but it 
was cold, and they'd had no water or food, and 
couldn't last it out." That was all. 

We got him in slowly, and afterwards the others, 
but not until one of the warships had dealt with the 
snipers. Later we buried all the others. One of the 
men we brought in had been out there half in the 
water and half out, shot through both knees, but 
he was cheery and bright, and asked first about his 
brother in another company, and then explained 
where the Turks were sniping from. 

At night the rifle fire waved backwards and for- 
wards in fluctuating bursts, and we expected an 
attack at dawn. It came, but not against our posi- 
tion. More in the centre the enemy made a des- 
perate effort They approached our trenches — 
came through the lines, and were certainly brave 
and venturesome. Once an unmistakably foreign 
bugle blew the " Cease fire," but an order was 
passed down our line to take no notice, it was a ruse. 
At one time, as darkness came down a voice in 
English called out " Retire ! Retire ! " but as there 
was no immediate reason why we should retire, 
we waited, and again Brigade Headquarters informed 
us it was not a British command. 



22 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

It will be hard to forget those first days, and 
even now I wake at night with the patter of musketr y 
in my ears, only to find some cart is rumbling past 
the hospital on uneasy wheels. 



ABDUL: AN APPRECIATION 



I HEARD the shriek of an approaching shell, 
something hit the ground beneath my feet, 
and I went sailing through the ether, to land softly 
on an iron hospital cot in a small white-walled room. 
There was no doubt that it was a most extraordinary 
happening. On the wall beside me was a tempera- 
ture chart, on a table by my bed was a goolah of 
water, and in the air was that subtle Cairene smell. 
Yes, I was undoubtedly back in Cairo. Obviously 
I must have arrived by that shell. 

Then, as I was thinking it all out, appeared to me 
a vision in a long white galabieh. It smiled, or 
rather its mouth opened, and disclosed a row of 
teeth like hailstones on black garden mould. 

" Me Abdul," it said coyly ; " gotter givit you 
one wash." 

I was washed in sections, and Abdul did it 
thoroughly. There came a halt after some more 
than usually strenuous scrubbing at my knees. Mut- 
terings of " mushquais " (no good) and a wrinkled 
brow showed me that Abdul was puzzled. Then it 
dawned on me. I had been wearing shorts at 

23 



24 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

Anzac, and Abdul was trying to wash the sunburn 
off my knees ! By dint of bad French, worse 
Arabic, and much sign language I explained. Abdul 
went to the door and jodelled down the corridor, 
" Mohaaaaamed ! Achmed ! " Two other slaves of 
the wash-bowl appeared, and to them Abdul dis- 
closed my mahogany knees with much the same air 
as the gentleman who tells one the fine points of the 
living skeleton on Hampstead Heath. They gazed 
in wonder. At last Achmed put his hand on my 
knee. " This called ? " he asked. " Knee," I told 
him. 

" Yes," he said thoughtfully, " this neece — 
Arabic ; this " (pointing to an unsunburnt part of 
my leg) — " Eengleesh." 

Then the washing proceeded uninterruptedly. 
" You feelin' very quais (good) ? " Abdul asked. I 
told him I was pretty quais, but that I had been 
quaiser. " Ginral comin' safternoon and Missus," 
he informed me, and I gathered that no less a person 
than the Commander-in-Chief (one of them) was to 
visit the hospital. And so it happened, for about 
five o'clock there was a clinking of spurs in the 
passage, and the matron ushered in an affable 
brass hat and a very charming lady. In the back- 
ground hovered several staff officers. Suddenly 
their ranks were burst asunder and Abdul appeared 
breathless. 

He had nearly missed the show. He stood over 
me with an air of ownership and suddenly whipped 
off my bed-clothes, displaying my nether limbs. 



ABDUL : AN APPRECIATION 25 

He saw he had made an impression. " Neece is 
Arabic," he said proudly. It was Abdul's best 
turn, and he brought the house down. The visitors 
departed, but for ten minutes I heard loud laughter 
from down the corridor. Abdul had departed in 
their wake, doubtless to tell Achmed and Mohammed 
of the success of his coup. 

I had been smoking cigarettes, but found the 
habit extravagant, as Abdul appreciated them even 
more than I did. One morning I woke up to see 
him making a cache in his round cotton cap. I kept 
quiet until he came nearer, and then I grabbed his 
hat. It was as I thought, and about ten cigarettes 
rolled on the floor. I looked sternly at Abdul. 
He was due to wither up and confess. Instead he 
broke first into a seraphic grin and then roared 
with laughter. " Oh, very funny, very, very 
funny," he said between his paroxysms. Now what 
could I say after that ? I was beaten and I had 
to admit it, but I decided that I would smoke a 
pipe. To this end I gave Abdul ten piastres and sent 
him out to buy me some tobacco. He arrived 
back in about an hour with two tins worth each 
eight piastres. " Me quais ? " he asked expectantly. 
" Well, you are pretty hot stuff," I admitted, " but 
how did you do it ? " 

Abdul held up one tin. 

" Me buy this one," he said solemnly ; " this 
one " (holding up the other one) " got it ! " 

" What do you mean, ' got it ' ? " 

" J us> & ot ft/' was all the answer I could get. 



26 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

Then to crown the performance he produced two 
piastres change. Could the genii of the Arabian 
Nights have done better ? 

I was in that hospital for three weeks, and I 
verily believe that if it had not been for Abdul I 
should have been in three weeks more. He had 
his own way of doing things and people, but he 
modelled himself unconsciously on some personality 
half-way between Florence Nightingale and Fagin's 
most promising pupil. The day I was to go he 
cleaned my tunic buttons and helmet badge with 
my toothbrush and paste and brought them proudly 
to me for thanks. And I thanked him. 

The last I saw of Abdul was as I drove away in 
the ambulance. A pathetic figure in a white robe 
stood out on the balcony and mopped his eyes with 
his cotton cap, and as he took it off his head there 
fell to the ground half a dozen crushed cigarettes. 
It was a typical finale. 



TWO LETTERS 

WELLINGTON, N.Z., 

Troopship No. io. 

DEAR Jimmy, — 
We go out into the stream to-morrow 
morning early, so I am writing you now, and will 
post it before we leave the wharf. Pater came 
on board with mater to say good-bye last night, 
and I took them over our quarters. Mater was 
vastly impressed with the fact that we have the 
first-class accommodation of the vessel. We have 
our mess in the huge saloon, but all the marble 
panelling is covered over with rough deal boards 
and all the regular tables have been taken out, and 
we now sit at boards that are as rough as our man- 
ners. You know we have a mixed company, and 
bank clerks and big run holders sit cheek by jowl 
with shearers and roadmen. All of them are jolly 
good fellows though, and all as keen as mustard 
to get away. Yesterday I saw Henderson, you 
know the chap who bought Wainamu station and 
about thirteen hundred cattle, handing round the 
stew at the two centre tables, and one of the men 
he was waiting on was a chap who used to be his 

27 



28 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

polo groom ! War is a great leveller, and here one 
sees instances that seem almost laughable. They 
are saved being that by the fact that not one man 
amongst the whole force is in the least self-conscious. 

I told you we privates and corporals have the 
saloon to dine in. Well, there's a rather good joke 
on the sergeants. Their dining-room is the chil- 
dren's saloon, and the fact is blazoned over the 
door in letters of brass ! Spud comes on to-morrow 
and takes the vacant bunk in the four-berth cabin 
we occupy. When we are all in bed there's lots of 
room, but we all have to get undressed in the alley 
way, and our clothes are wreathed about the room 
like khaki draperies. 

The pater is a funny old bird, isn't he ? When 
he had talked a bit to me about keeping my nut 
down when it wasn't wanted up, he said he had a 
lot of writing to do for to-morrow's English mail. 
Then he shook hands rather hurriedly and went 
down the gangway and along the wharf without 
even once looking back. His figure faded into a 
mist as he got near the end, and I had to take a 
pull on myself and talk hard to mater, who had not 
gone ashore. 

She only had about another ten minutes on board, 
and we talked of everything but war or going away. 
Dear old mater ! She went through my kit seriatim, 
and gave me advice as to my wardrobe as if I was 
travelling like a prince. As a matter of fact my 
wardrobe now consists of about two shirts and 
four pair of socks. Neither of us felt too cheery, 



TWO LETTERS 29 

but mater is the bravest little woman in the world, 
and she kissed me and went down on to the wharf 
with the cheeriest of smiles on her face. She waited 
for a while at the barrier and waved. Kelly the 
big wharf policeman was by me on the deck and 
took things in at a glance. " Oi've an ould mother 
mesilf," he said, " although she is a few thousand 
miles away from here. Oi'll just be after seem' 
her safely through the crowd now." And he ambled 
off down to the barrier and was as good as his word. 
Kelly made a lane through the crowd, and the last 
I saw of them both was when they waved from the 
corner of the woolstore. Bless Kelly for the very 
human bobby that he is ! He'd be pouring out 
his inimitable stories until he drew a smile, then 
he'd get a laugh, and by the time he'd finished I 
bet you he sent mater home more or less happy. 
And now I'm off to bed. Second thoughts, I'll keep 
this letter and not post it to-morrow, for you'll see 
all you want in the long letter I am posting to pater, 
which I will ask them to send on to you. I will 
keep this and add to it and post it from the first port. 

Next Day. 

Just a few lines to-day. Last night I lay up on 
the boat deck and soaked in the glorious night. 
Somewhere, on a transport lying away over towards 
Evans Bay, a bugle sounded " First Post," and one 
by one all the ships echoed the call. On our fore- 
castle a man with a violin was playing Raff's Cava- 
tina, and playing it like a master. Now and again 



30 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

the whinny of a horse would break into the melody 
like some strange obligate I listened to these 
sounds until " Last Post " rang out from our deck 
first, and then blended in one sad call as the other 
ships joined in as before. One by one the rows of 
lighted ports disappeared, and I went down to bunk 
feeling something like I did years ago when I sat 
in Big School waiting to go in to my last Com- 
memoration Day service. 

Next Day. 

My head's in a whirl after this most wonderful 
morning. We paraded early, and rumour for once 
was right. There was something afoot. One had 
only to look at the warships to see that, for they 
had stowed their cutters and pinnaces and were in 
sea-going trim. At about half -past eight the first 
of our escort, the flagship, steamed slowly out of the 
harbour, and one by one our big grey transports 
followed, until we brought up the end of the line. 
It was a wonderful sight, and the few people who 
had the luck to be about saw something that they 
will remember all their lives. We went slowly 
towards Pencarrow Light, and past the beaches 
where we used to sun-bathe in less stirring times. A 
splash of white away up on the hill amongst the 
manuka scrub marked the house where we spent 
our week-ends this time last year. On the other 
side of the harbour faint cheers came from shore- 
wards, and a flag dipped to us as we passed the 
Forts. On through the rocky headlands and out 



TWO LETTERS 31 

away westwards, past the long white beaches, and 
then the iron-bound coast of Terawhiti. The strait 
was calm as glass, and as the long line of sixteen 
vessels swung out, the smoke from their funnels 
towered in black columns above them. The six 
transports on the starboard side slowed down (we 
could hear the bells of their engine-room telegraphs) 
until the last six of the line came up abreast of 
them. Then in double file, with the black signal 
cones showing that they were making " required 
speed," they forged slowly ahead. 

Away to starboard, a big grey cruiser belched 
black smoke (she burns oil), and the flag at her 
stern was the Rising Sun of Japan. 
Evening. 

Terawhiti Head has long ago faded into the soft 
blue mist, and we have left Farewell Spit abeam. 
Never did so many New Zealanders say farewell to it 
before. Ahead of us the sky is a blaze of crimson 
and the soft smooth sea has absorbed the colour 
until the horizon line almost fades away to nothing. 
At first, an hour back, it was a faint pink, but as one 
watched, the few clouds edged with rose took on a 
brighter hue until they reached a colour climax of 
vivid crimson. Even now it is dying. Along the 
deck the men are cleaning up the horse-stalls, but 
every now and then an energetic sweeper pauses 
and leans on his broom, looking his last at the faint 
line of Farewell Spit. Perhaps, who knows, we 
may live that moment over again when we start 
off on our last trek. 



32 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

I was watching a man leaning on the rail just 
now and he smiled slowly, then laughed to himself. 
Seeing me, he explained : "I was just thinking of 
the last time I came across here. It was in this 
same old tub, and when we got about here I was 
cussing a deck steward who said he couldn't find me 
a chair. That was my bunk (pointing to a deck 
cabin used as the Colonel's office), and I thought it 
wasn't as good as it might be. And here I am muck- 
ing out stables and swabbing decks, where six 
months ago I was standing telling another passenger 
that the Company's food seemed to be getting 
worse and worse. Then we only had a choice of 
about twenty-five dishes and now a man is safe 
to make a hundred pound bet that it's stew for 
tea. Well, it's all in the game ! Get over there, 
you swine ! " and he bent to his work again scrub- 
bing the planking beneath the feet of a large chestnut 
that seemed to resent his attentions. 

There's " Cook House Door " going, and as I have 
tea in the second relay I'd better be off. I will 
write up mater's letter to-night, but I might add 
to this if I've anything for your private ear. I'll 
post it at the first port, wherever that is to be. 

So long just now. 

Yours, 

Noel. 

ZEITOUN CAMP, CAIRO. 

Dear Jimmy, — 

It seems to me that I have forgotten you for a 
long time past, but you wilf have seen all the letters 



TWO LETTERS 33 

to pater and mater. Still, our letters are in the 
nature of personal confabs, and as I never give 
you news in the common sense of the word, I am 
going to write of things haphazard. We have come 
the old, old route of the ocean caravans, and are 
here in a city where the centuries jostle one another. 

Past the door of my hut but five minutes gone 
Joseph led Mary on an ass, and a racing taxi dusted 
the father's blue robe as the lowly group drew aside. 

Over the railway line at Matarieh is the Virgin's 
tree, where Mary rested with her babe in their 
flight. Tourists and others visit the spot and 
afterwards produce the inevitable camera record, 
saying to their friends, " Of course, it is only a 
legend." But it is not. I know better now, for as 
I watched a mother came to the sakhia wheel and 
cupped her hands to the water running from the 
pottery jars. She drank the cool draught, and 
sitting on the stone well-coping gave her child to 
drink also, crooning softly until her song murmured 
like the plashing water from the well-wheel. And 
the patient ox with his wicker head-stall, for all he 
could not see, knew as well as I that Mary did rest 
here. 

Camp is camp all the world over, but a Cairo 
camp is surely like no other on earth. We are on 
the boundary of Heliopolis, the ancient city of On, 
and at the end of the camp road one crosses a 
patch of desert where the people of old time buried 
their dead. The graves are narrow shafts, and two 
days age Spud and I explored a number of them. 



34 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

At the bottom, short stone-lined galleries radiate 
to the tombs, all of which have now been despoiled. 
Still, one comes across an occasional scarab, or a 
deposit of beads of some ancient dynasty. Isn't it 
weird to think where some of these may find their 
way ? Back in New Zealand or Australia, the 
ornaments of an Egyptian princess may become 
sacred souvenirs of a life given for the Empire. 

Since I have been here I have got the deuce of a 
respect for our camp cooks. It is easy enough to 
get sand in the food, but it must take brains to turn 
out a stew that resembles nothing so much as slabs 
from an asphalt tennis-court soaked in gravy. If 
the Israelites had half as bad a time as we are 
having with the sand then we cannot wonder at 
their clearing out. The thing that surprises me is 
that when they got to the Red Sea they wanted 
to walk across on dry land at all. I should have 
thought that they would have said, " Thanks, but 
we would be glad of the chance to swim." 

We eke out our meals with a vegetarian diet. It 
sometimes takes so long to bargain for and buy a 
cucumber and half a dozen tomatoes that we have 
to take our lunch on parade in our haversacks. A 
plate of tomatoes and cucumber garnished with 
onion makes a very acceptable meal when the ther- 
mometer stands at over the century. 

Spud and I went to the citadel last night, and sat 
on the battlements where Napoleon mounted his 
guns. It was j ust getting dusk, and all the sordidness 
of the city was veiled with a soft violet haze through 



TWO LETTERS 35 

which the minarets of the mosques showed hesitat- 
ingly. Over west past the river, the sun set behind 
the Pyramids. It is only thus that one gets any 
idea of their size. The muezzin came out on to the 
minaret of a near-by mosque, and with his hands 
held trumpet-wise called the faithful to prayer. 
The wonderful notes rose and fell, infinitely sad, 
with rippling syllables and alliteration. 

Then from the battlements below us, now shrouded 
in darkness, came words of command. With start- 
ling suddenness the garrison bugles rang out " re- 
treat," all their harshness mellowed by the soft 
warm air. To our left through the gloom stood a 
sentry, and as we watched we seemed to see the 
cocked hat, the long white spatterdashes, and the 
clumsy musket of an age gone by. He came nearer 
and I heard him sigh for his home in France, and 
then I caught the murmur, " Pour la Patrie." 

But it was just a Tommy, commonplace and 
unromantic, but even in him the spirit of the old 
days still lives. And so I think it does with us. 
There are rumours about that we have a move in 
prospect, and we may soon get out of this stagnant 
backwater into the full-flowing stream that may 
lead us God knows where. 

Yours as ever was, 

Noel. 



IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS 

April, 1915. 

A VOYAGE westward and northward across the 
oceans from the Antipodes in these times 
impresses the traveller not only with the vast re- 
sources of the Empire, but also with the splendid 
spirit that animates our race in a crisis calling for 
almost superhuman energies of mind and body. 
Every one now knows what the Colonies have volun- 
tarily done, and are still prepared to do. That is 
one of the many issues upon which German diplomats 
blundered hopelessly On the great liner carrying 
His Majesty's mails to the heart of the Empire we 
soon find that almost every man — and woman — is 
travelling to or because of the war. Each is going 
in the track of the troops that have gone before. 
Albany, where months ago the great Australasian 
armada assembled for its historic voyage, is the first 
milestone along the route. There are others that 
mark historic stages in the great trek — the rusting 
ribs of the Emden upon the Keeling rocks ; the huge 
camps in the desert in Egypt ; the fight on the 
Canal ; and now the operations in the Dardanelles. 
History is being " written in lightning flashes." 

36 



IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS 37 

And there will be other milestones yet, farther afield. 
At Fremantle, a splendid New Zealand ship, 
crowded with Australian soldiers, their band playing, 
steams into the golden wake of the setting sun. 
It is an inspiriting scene. The enthusiasm spreads 
to the passengers on the liner, and the flying corps 
in the well deck for'ard join in the lusty cheering, 
and then burst into a song with the refrain — 

We will never forget Australia 
And the friends we leave behind. 

The crude poetry of the song will not find a place 
in any anthology, but the sentiment appeals to the 
dwellers in the great sun-baked Continent, which 
already, almost, has become a nation. 

The Aviation Corps, which consists of a young 
captain, a young lieutenant, and some thirty-eight 
non-coms, and men, is keen as possible. Drill, 
study, and physical exercises occupy nearly all their 
time. They are a fine type of young men who 
compose this corps. One of the " Tommies " owns 
two large sheep stations, and is rich beyond the 
dreams of avarice. He could buy up the ship, cargo 
and all ; but he wanted to do his share in the war, 
and, knowing nothing of drill, decided to join as a 
private. " And," says the stout farrier sergeant- 
major, who wears the ribbon of the Boer War, " he 
is as happy as Larry." The corps does not know 
where it is going ; but it imagines it will soon be 
operating in the Persian Gulf. 

There are quite a number of young men on board, 



38 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

all bound for one or other of the campaigns in which 
Britain is now engaged. Two go Home to join 
King Edward's Horse. Two others hope for com- 
missions in the Engineers. Then there are several 
young doctors, fresh from their final examinations 
— among them the fast bowler of an Australian 
eleven. They are, without exception, fine types 
of the young Australian, and will give of their best 
in the cause of the Empire. There are also English 
officers on furlough, now keen to get to the war. 
The tall, clever cavalryman at the captain's table 
has already been there. A horse fell with him, 
and he was sent on a special mission, with two other 
officers, to buy horses in Australia — twenty thou- 
sand of them. It is a game at which in the past big 
commissions have been made, but of late years the 
methods of the War Office have been revolutionized, 
and so it happens that the only tribute in connexion 
with this £400,000 deal is a box of somewhat inferior 
cigars pushed on board a departing steamer by a 
man in Adelaide, and, in addition, a glowing letter 
of praise from an officer high up in the Army Re- 
mount Department. 

An ex-P. and O. officer, R.N.R., who already has 
had eight cousins killed in the war, has left his sheep 
station in Australia to do duty in the North Sea. 
His wife and two babies are with him. A captain, 
who saw service with the New Zealanders in the Boer 
War, and who has since roughed it in the " Mallee," 
is returning to join his old regiment, the Buffs — 
or what is left of it. 



IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS 39 

Ten days out from Fremantle the flashing of the 
Galle light, and, later, a flaming sunrise above the 
cone of Adams's Peak, point to other scenes — to 
Ceylon, which, out of her four thousand planters, 
has sent three thousand to the war. At Colombo, 
except for the scarcity of freightships and the 
dearth of tourists, it is a case of " business as usual," 
for there is now no Emden afloat and no Ceylon 
Germans wirelessing to her about the movements 
of British ships. The Galle Face at dinner is still 
an interesting sight, and here meet and mingle men 
from New Zealand and Australia, from Penang and 
Singapore, from Hong-Kong and Yokohama, even 
from Petrograd and Peking. A chance meeting with 
an old friend leads to a dinner at the G.O.H. in in- 
teresting company. A clever Russian official and a 
young Russian from Siberia are able to tell us 
much about the Eastern campaign and to give 
comprehensive details of the great driving force 
in the Tsar's dominions. Russia can train twelve 
million men for this war. The figures are stagger- 
ing. " But has she enough munitions for her 
present forces ? " We are assured that she is 
getting them. England has helped, so has Japan, 
and even America. 

Colombo is the jumping-off place for our outposts 
of Empire in the Far East — those possessions and 
dependencies in which the young men who are the 
pioneers of tropic trade stew and swelter in the hot, 
moist ports, or toil in the fever-stricken jungles 
with tin and rubber. There are men boarding our 



4 o LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

ship from all these parts bound for the war. Many 
have already gone on. The Straits Settlements, 
especially, have done splendidly, both in regard to 
men and money. These people tell strange tales 
of happenings in the Far East — the Singapore riot, 
a jumpy time at Hong-Kong, and other events. 
The German who engineered the riot at Singapore 
was head of a big firm there. He escaped to Java, 
and from there had the impudence to telegraph 
back to the Governor thanking him for his hos- 
pitality ! 

In Colombo, also, one hears strange tales of 
German spies. One of the German firms was the 
wealthiest in Colombo. The German Club was the 
best there. The former k now being conducted 
by the Government. The latter is closed, and, 
as we drive through the residential quarter, we note 
the shuttered houses of these wealthy Germans 
standing untenanted and forlorn amidst the gorgeous 
flowering trees and shrubs of their spacious grounds. 
Their former inhabitants are in an inland camp under 
strict guard. The late manager of the Galle Face 
and the wealthy merchant are among them. Hagen- 
back — brother of the celebrated animal man — was 
caught red-handed sending messages. Owing to 
some laxity he is supposed to have escaped to Java. 
Rumour states that a British cruiser went after 
him. What happened is known to few people. A 
police official hints that he did not reach Java. Some 
say he was shot. After the war we may know. 

From all one hears of the happenings in the Far 



IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS 41 

East one comes to the inevitable conclusion that 
the authorities throughout the British Dominions 
cannot be too strict in their treatment of the German 
alien within their gates. In some instances there 
was undue tolerance, and precautions were taken 
only when it was too late. It all points to the 
necessity for the appointment of strong and capable 
men to important positions of great trust in the 
outposts of Empire. Such positions should not be 
simply rewards for political services rendered or 
money given to a cause. 

It is interesting to listen to the opinions of men 
and women who have seen the troops on their way 
to the seat of war. But this is scarcely a time for 
comparisons and criticisms. On the contrary, so 
tremendous is the task before us that it behoves 
every one to do all that is possible by word and act 
in stimulating a friendly feeling and a healthy 
patriotism. One could not, however, repress a 
thrill of pride in listening to the opinions of the 
people of Colombo upon the conduct and bearing 
of the New Zealand troops who landed there. The 
New Zealanders wherever they have been have 
maintained untarnished the fair name of their fine 
country. All that one has heard in the track of 
our troops is a tribute to the care with which they 
were selected, to the officers who trained them, and 
to the stock from which they have sprung. The 
moral of it all is to weed out the waster, to discard 
the unfit. As time goes on and more drafts are re- 
quired this may be the more difficult of accomplish- 



42 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

ment, but it will be none the less necessary. 

Among the men who joined us at Colombo from 
the Far East was a young Belgian Consul. Several 
of his relatives and many of his friends have fallen 
in the war. He is going to the trenches. His 
mother, who is in Brussels, wrote that, though he 
was an only son, he must come home and fight. 
Willingly he has left his post in the East, and is 
hurrying to the Western battlefields. 

As our voyage proceeds it becomes more and 
more interesting, though somewhat more risky. In 
the Arabian Sea the south-west monsoon drives us 
north of the long barren island of Socotra, and we 
reach Aden late. Still later in the night the Salsette 
glides in, bringing her load of Anglo-Indians, with 
piles of luggage, in which one notes the guns of the 
hunter, the rods of the masheer man, and the clubs 
of the less adventurous golfer. The stout little old 
man with the eyeglass is a general from the Persian 
Gulf. Next him, diving into the pile of luggage for 
his bundle, is a sergeant of the Royal Horse Artillery. 
He is here with some twenty or thirty of his men 
from India going to train more artillery in England. 
He is not troubling much about the war. War is 
his job, and he will take it as and when it comes 
with the calm philosophy of his type. Meantime, 
it is the necessity of the moment that he is thinking 
about, and he delivers with much metaphor and 
appropriate adjectives a homily to all and sundry 
upon the blighter who has " pinched " his straps. 
A grey cruiser from the Persian Gulf has poked 



IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS 43 

her nose in under the shelter of the old rock, and as 
the shore searchlights pierce the darkness this ship, 
and other craft of varied kind, are revealed with 
startling suddenness. On shore the garrison is 
strengthened, and big Sikh sentries bar your pro- 
gress on the upland paths. 

Perim, with its lighthouse and its cable station, 
stares at us as we enter the Red Sea. Here are 
more soldiers. They were needed. All that night 
the lights along the Red Sea, formerly in the hands 
of the Turks, now tended by British hands, flash 
brightly. Here we meet and pass the converging 
traffic of East and West — a tank steamer with 
engines far aft, carrying oil from Java ; a hospital 
ship going to the Persian Gulf ; a Dutch steamer 
with her colours and name in huge letters so that 
the German submarines may not sink her ; and many 
others, all travelling in comparative safety under 
the protecting wing of the British Navy. 

The Canal is a sight in itself, Port Said is more 
interesting than ever, and Alexandria provides 
scenes never to be forgotten. We have come these 
thousands of miles in the track of the troops unes- 
corted and without a mishap, with never a German 
flag in sight — a tribute surely to the nation that 
still rules the waves. And throughout this long 
trek across the oceans, at every port men are joining 
us eager to take their places in the fighting lines. 
From the fertile fields of New Zealand, from the 
sun-bathed plains of Australia, from China, from 
India, from Ceylon, from the Malay Archipelago, 



44 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

and even from Somaliland, the young men are 
answering the call, with the blood of their fathers 
still strong in their veins. They are travelling 
westward in the track of the troops who have gone 
before. 



THE GROUND WE WON 



GALLIPOLI, 

August 16, 1915. 

IT is after the fight. The battle has spent itself 
as a breaker on a rock-bound shore. The back- 
wash is gathering itself slowly together to form 
another wave. It is a good opportunity to make a 
pilgrimage to the shrine of our dead : to see the 
ground so dearly won. There is still desultory 
firing from the guns on the cruisers and destroyers 
in the Gulf of Saros, the waters of which lave our 
curving sandy beach opposite Imbros and that 
other rugged isle where St. Paul sailed. The crack 
of an enemy maxim resounds from the hillside, 
and the stream of bullets hits up the sand on the 
beach. At intervals — intervals long enough to 
suggest a scarcity of high explosives — a shell from 
a big Turkish gun bursts in the sand or the sea. 
Sometimes, too tired to fight, it doesn't even burst. 
A sniper, who is more than a good shot, amuses 
himself potting from long range at some Indians 
digging a grave. 
We turn our backs on all this and enter a trench 

45 



46 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

on our left. The sap bends round on to a little 
flat and leads into the mouth of a narrow valley, 
up which winds a path flanked by scrub-covered 
low ridges. At first the grade is easy. On the left 
the sad grey of olive trees contrasts with the green 
of the ilex — the prickly dwarf oak that covers this 
rugged country. How our men fought through 
here in the darkness is a marvel. The prickly 
scrub tore their hands and bare knees till there 
was not an inch of skin unscarified. For three 
terrible days they continued fighting, and then 
sores that had become septic gave the doctors much 
work. Wandering a little way into the scrub at 
the risk of being sniped you note the evidences of the 
advance — bits of torn garments, a puttee that had 
become loosened and torn from the leg, a helmet 
lost in the darkness, a sock telling the tale of a 
wounded foot, other garments blood-stained, clips 
of cartridges, a broken rifle, and first field dressings 
torn from arm or leg by the unyielding branches 
of the sturdy prickly ilex. In some of the most 
beautiful spots the stench of an unburied body 
fouls the hot air. On the left is an old Turkish 
well, the coping blown off by some shell. It is deep 
and narrow, and lined with stone. Most likely there 
is a body at the bottom of it. 

On the left, also, is a barbed-wire entanglement, 
with which the enemy hoped to block the progress 
up the valley. The troops went at it under fire in 
the darkness. With clippers they cut the wire, 
and, this being too slow a process, by main strength 



THE GROUND WE WON 47 

they tore up the stakes. Not a man was killed ! 
The bullets went flying over their heads with one 
continuous screech. 

" I tink we all get killed at that wire," said one 
Maori. " The bullets come ping ! ping ! ping ! 
over our heads all the time ; but the Turk he fire 
too high. Py gorry ! I tink we have the lucky 
escape that time ! " 

Later in the night the Maoris had still more serious 
work to do. In silence, with empty magazines and 
fixed bayonets they attacked the Turk in trench and 
dug-out, helping to clear the scrub-covered foot- 
hills for the main attack on Chunuk Bair. They 
were supposed to do all this in silence, but, after 
the first brush, the blood was up, and, for the first 
time in history, the hills and dales of Gallipoli re- 
sounded to the ancient war-song of the Maori 
tribesmen — 

Ka mate, ka mate ! 
Ka ova, ka ova ! 
Ka mate, ka mate ! 
Ka ova, ka ova ! 

Tene te tangata puhuruhuru, 
Nana te tangata puhuruhuru, 
Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra, 
Upane, kaupene, upane kaupane ; 
Whiti te ra t * 

followed by British cheering. No one could see what 
was taking place, but we on the hills below, listen- 
ing, and watching the flashes of the Turkish guns, 
could picture the scene. A few minutes of deathly 
silence, then a burst of cheering and the" Kamate, 



48 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

ka mate ! " again. Then silence once more and 
renewed cheering and the war-song, as the warriors 
dashed forward bayoneting right and left, or 
clubbing as with the " taiaha " of the olden time. 
In this way trench after trench was cleared. Above 
the rattle of the Turkish musketry and cries of 
" Allah ! Allah ! " the shouts of victory in the 
darkness made a thrilling prelude to the main battle 
that was to begin at dawn. But these brave war- 
riors did not escape scatheless themselves, for 
many a Maori of noble lineage lay dead that night 
amidst the ilex shrubbery on the slopes above the 
Gulf of Saros. 

Shot through the body, one young brave fell 
on a path at the bottom of the ravine. He blocked 
the way for the stretcher-bearers and the ammunition 
and water-carriers. So they rolled the body some 
few yards up the hillside. " Poor old Hori," they 
said, " he's finished," and they left him and pressed 
on. But Hori took it into his head to come to life 
again, and, after the first few dazed minutes, he got 
up and walked down to the dressing-station ! 

At one spot on our upward journey the track is 
overlooked by the Turkish trenches. We can see 
them quite clearly on the slopes of Chunuk Bair, 
and there are snipers who have come down into the 
scrub to take pot-shots at men passing up and down 
the valley. It becomes necessary to run. Sand- 
bags are piled high at intervals, and we dash from 
one barricade to another in fifty and hundred-yard 
sprints. Cowering under the first wall of sand- 



THE GROUND WE WON 49 

bags, very much out of breath, we look at each other 
and laugh. My sprinting days are almost over, and 
in such a grilling heat one would almost prefer the 
risk of being shot. My companion — a famous 
English war correspondent — having regained his 
wind, remarks, "I'm not very fond of bullets, but I 
do hate running." Then we make another dash up 
to the next lot of sandbags, and fling ourselves at 
their base. It is really too ridiculous, and we look 
at each other and laugh louder than before. Here 
there are half a dozen " Tommies " who are in the 
middle of the same performance. One points to a 
stone almost touching my foot. " He got one on to 
that stone just now," he said in a Lancashire dialect. 
I drew in my leg quickly — I am brave only when I 
am fairly safe, or when enthusiasm or necessity un- 
latches the door of discretion ! " Three sergeants 
were talking to one another at that" bend this morn- 
ing, and every one was hit," said another man. 
He seemed to regard this as a joke. If one only had 
been hit that would have been an ordinary occur- 
rence, and not worth mention. But a bag of 
three ! — that was too funny for words. While we 
had been doing the last sprint it had occurred to 
each of us that we would walk the next stage, but 
we now resolved to run harder than ever ! After 
four or five successive sprints of this kind we were 
glad to moisten our parched throats with some 
precious water at a field dressing-station of the 
13th Division that we ran into round a bend of the 
track higher up. 

E 



50 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

The steep spurs and precipitous sides of " Table 
Top " were now on our right, and one marvelled 
how our men had got up there in the darkness. 
The Turks had bolted from Table Top ! Half a 
dozen could have held the position against our men — 
coming up in single file. But we had another bit 
of luck here. No sooner had our men gained the 
position than 150 Turks, driven out of one of their 
forward positions by the New Zealanders, attempted 
to scale the heights. Other New Zealanders were 
on them in an instant, and recognizing their position 
was wellnigh hopeless, they all laid down their 
arms and surrendered. Our men took 158 Turkish 
prisoners here. 

The track winds and twists and gets steeper. 
A mule-train laden with ammunition and stores 
passes, and the protruding boxes in the narrow way 
threaten us with broken ribs. The steep hills have 
now closed in on us and we are safe from snipers. 
Far below, the gloriously blue and placid waters of 
the Gulf of Saros come into view. Up, up, up we 
climb. Our men had no track here — naught but 
steep hillside, dense prickly scrub, and Turkish 
bullets. We wonder more than ever how they 
stormed the position. The English correspondent 
who has seen much war becomes enthusiastic. We 
have a few words with the Brigadier-General, whose 
attacking column is now resting. This Brigade- 
Major is sitting with bandaged knees in the same 
dug-out. 

The view becomes more extensive and more 



THE GROUND WE WON 51 

beautiful as we climb. Presently we are in the 
trenches — the highest trenches we now hold on 
Rhododendron Ridge — the highest on all the Penin- 
sula. The ridge itself is strewn with bodies, swollen 
and festering in the hot sun. No man dare go out 
to bury them. Some are in strange attitudes, but 
mostly they have fallen forward on their faces, 
suggesting " the stout heart to the stae brae." 
Quite close are a New Zealander and a Ghurka ; 
farther along the ridge a Turk ; and, yonder, three 
men fallen together. Near one trench is part of a 
body that high explosive has dismembered. Some of 
these are among the " missing." They may never 
be identified ; they will occupy a common nameless 
grave on Rhododendron Spur, far from their homes 
in Mother England, in sunny Australia, in distant 
New Zealand, and among the hills of India. In the 
cleft of the summit hill away on the left is a heavy 
toll of Turkish dead. 

The men now occupying the position are living in 
little dug-outs just below us. They take turns in the 
trenches. The Turks in front have sapped forward 
and have made a short trench facing us about fifty 
yards away. One shows his head above the top, 
and in an instant the machine gun at our elbow is 
spitting at him, each crack making a puissant 
throbbing in our ears, while the stream of bullets 
hits up the opposing parapet in dust. The cracking 
and the throbbing cease, and when the dust has 
cleared there is no more sign of the Turk's head. 
Whether there is a bullet through it or not we can- 



52 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

not say, but if not it has been a very close call for 
that particular Turk. 

An officer comes along and tells us we must be 
out of the trenches by five o'clock. The guns are 
going to bombard, he adds, and there may be a few 
" shorts." We have no desire to be involved in 
shells bursting short, so make the best use of the 
four minutes left us and depart. As we round a 
corner in the trench a Turk throws a bomb, and a 
" Tommy," endeavouring to throw it back, has his 
right hand blown clean off. A ligature and bandage 
are quickly applied, and later in the evening he 
passes on a stretcher carried down the winding path 
on his way to England. He has seen the last of the 
great war. Looking back to the still figures on the 
spur of Rhododendron Ridge one cannot help think- 
ing that he is a lucky man. 

We wait awhile to take some photographs and 
to watch the bombardment. Then back down the 
steep path between the stunted ilex. Men are 
ducking into their dug-outs. A Turkish machine 
gun from the left is hitting up the dust on the track. 
We cut out a hundred yards in quick time between 
two bursts of fire, and escape unhit. All this is at 
the end of a long and tiring day, that commenced 
at Imbros at 5 a.m., included a trip across the Gulf 
of Saros, a call at Suvla, a sea trip along the coast to 
Anzac, and a walk back along the hot, dusty sap to 
our new position. After this other pilgrimage bully 
beef and hard biscuit and tea, and the writing of 
dispatches till midnight. Then the interests and 




Graves ox Gallipot. 




The last Load. 



THE GROUND WE WON 53 

incidents and issues of war, ever in our minds, are 
effaced by welcome slumber, that not even the noise 
of battle can disturb. 

* Death is done 
And life is come ! 

Behold the illustrious chief of power 
To whom we owe this light ome hour I 
He stays with us an honoured while : 
All evil flies before his smile. 



THE EDGE OF THE BARLEY 
FIELD 

ON A DAY IN AUGUST, 1915 

MY DEAREST One, — 
I have been back to the Barley Field. 
Yesterday I felt as if I could never go there again — 
but yesterday was a red day. This morning only 
a few of the guns were talking. The sun was bright 
and hot ; but there was a gentle land breeze. The 
sea was calm, and blue as a sapphire. Save for the 
tremulous whistle overhead of a sixty-pounder 
from a howitzer at lengthy intervals, the occasional 
crack of a sniper's rifle, and a few staccato shots 
from a concealed maxim, the whole Peninsula 
seemed at peace. I went round by the fringe of 
the low grass-lands, between the sturdy, forlorn 
oaks and graceful, whispering olive trees. The 
tender silver grey of these olive groves often con- 
ceals a gun — indeed a whole battery ! Can you 
imagine a greater incongruity ? 

You come suddenly round a bend, upon a clump 
of these trees, and expect to hear a thrush, or at 

54 



THE EDGE OF THE BARLEY FIELD 55 

least a linnet, sing. What you do hear is a man 
with a telephone tied to his ear, calling mechanically 
from long custom : " Twenty minutes more right ! 
Add twenty-five ! Repeat ! " That has come along 
the wire from an observation post a mile or more 
away, and is passed on to an officer, who in turn 
tells it to the gun's crew, and notes the entry in 
a book. He is seated on an empty ammunition- 
box and, apparently, is taking little interest in the 
proceedings. Why should he ? He cannot see the 
result of his work. Neither can the man who fires 
the gun. One regiment may be gallantly storming 
the heights or another hurriedly legging it from a 
captured trench, yet the gunner will not see the 
glory of the one nor the tragedy of the other. The 
shell is put into the gun, the breech closed, the 
sights quickly adjusted, and there is a resonant 
bang as the shell goes tearing through the air 
toward the unseen trench or gun emplacement. 
War is now a strange mixture of highly complex 
machinery and the ruder instruments of a bygone 
age. 

But I have forgotten about the Barley Field, 
and I have forgotten also that it was not to you 
that I wrote about it. It was yesterday that we 
came upon it. There were three of us. It was the 
Colonel who, on rounding a bend in the sap, suddenly 
said: "Oh, hell ! here's the General." The Colonel 
was not supposed to go near a battle — he was a Q 
man. But he did want to see this fight. So did the 
others, so with one accord we scrambled out of the 



56 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

sap and over an ilex-covered ridge, close under the 
whistling shells. In this way we dodged the 
General. We descended again into a valley, ran 
across an open flat, with the bullets whipping the 
dust all around us, climbed on to another ridge, 
and lay prone watching the battle. There was an 
inferno of noise. The shells were shrieking over- 
head like infuriated demons of the air ; the machine 
guns were rapping out their death-dealing tattoo ; 
and the short, sharp-nosed Turkish bullets were 
coming with an almost continuous whistle, as of a 
strong wind on overhead wires, and phut-phutting 
into the ground all about us. Spread below us, 
within full view, the battle raged, the Turkish 
trenches going up in clouds with the shell smoke. 
Men were going forward and coming back, and all 
the time the whip of the shrapnel and the stream 
and shower of machine gun and rifle fire were making 
the attacking numbers smaller. Fires started in 
the grass and scrub, and many wounded lying out 
there that night were burnt to death. 

The elation of watching^the opening phases of a 
battle at close range can never be forgotten. But 
that feeling does not continue, even with success, 
and after a time you note that while ammunition 
and water are being hurried forward, the wounded 
are already coming slowly back — some gamely 
walking, others, with ghastly head and body 
wounds, lying quietly on the stretchers bravely 
borne by the sweating bearers. Some few are 
sneaking back from the- stricken field, themselves 



THE EDGE OF THE BARLEY FIELD 57 

untouched, with wounded comrades : some with 
wounds self-inflicted. Even such things happen in 
battle ! 

But to-day there was none of this grim work. The 
Peninsula seemed almost at peace. We had gained 
ground and were digging in : the enemy had lost 
ground and were also digging in. 

Crossing the valley at the foot of the ilex-covered 
ridge from which we viewed the fighting yesterday, 
one saw that the big oak-tree, under which we had 
sheltered awhile, had got some more bullets through 
its rough skin. And one wondered whether some 
Christian carpenter — with St. Sophia redeemed at 
last from the Crescent — building anew, might per- 
chance blunt his plane on this Turkish nickel, and 
use unchristian language. But we had to confess 
to some doubt, for Turkish trenches had grown like 
mushrooms in a night, and we could plainly see, 
from the edge of the Barley Field, that here history 
was not being written " in hghtning flashes." 

For two reasons I had gone back to the Barley 
Field : I wanted to get away from the moaning 
that, at intervals, came from the rude shelter where 
our wounded lay in rows in the hot sun. I wished 
to get away also from the flies and the sight of 
blood ; and from the dead men sewn up, each in his 
own grey blanket, ready for the long sleep in his 
hurriedly dug grave. Those who die here, near 
where I write crouching in a small, sandy, fly-filled 
dug-out, get formal burial. Farther afield their 
comrades, who with the enemy dead block the taken 



58 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

trenches, are covered where they lie. The trench 
that was to become their home becomes their grave. 
Friend and foe they lie together — in peace at last. 
May God and the Prophet keep their respective 
souls and send consolation to their bereaved. Dying 
in the same trench, they have bandaged each other's 
wounds, have slaked each other's thirst. May 
each in his own paradise have his due reward for 
such kindly deeds ! 

Beside the Barley Field to-day, one is away from 
all the strife and the sordid side of war. Even the 
partridges that we flushed yesterday have come 
back into the corn, for a partridge as well as a 
soldier does well to have a full crop in these times 
of harry and strife. As I came upon them they 
rose with a whirr of wings from beside a bandolier 
on the edge of the trodden corn, and now, as 
yesterday, when the battle was at its height, they 
flew across the ridge toward the Turkish lines. 

Lying here on the warm earth, on the fringe of 
what was the battlefield, one gains time and quiet 
to think over things. The sordid side of war is 
often uppermost in one's thought. But there are 
golden streaks in the darkness, or perhaps one should 
say in the redness, were it not for the fact that even 
the crimson stain on unshaven face and torn, brown 
garment dries a duller hue — as unpleasant to look 
upon as the flies that swarm about it. 

But here in this clear air, the unfathomable 
blue above, one looks rather on the golden lining 
to the cloud, and closing my eyes in the hot noon 



THE EDGE OF THE BARLEY FIELD 59 

beside the Barley Field, I picture the long procession 
of our noble dead. 

From the lands of all our great Empire men have 
rallied to the call. Brave General, gallant Colonel, 
fearless private — each alike has won his guerdon 
in the Great Event. There are mental silhouettes 
of one's own friends that death alone can efface — 
a gallant Colonel charging over the crest of a great 
ridge in the dawn ; a doctor who at his years might 
well have been taking his ease in England, shot 
through the head in his bivouac ; a brave man 
killed after victory in a dashing bayonet charge 
in the dark ; surgeons and stretcher-bearers ; padres 
and engineers ; signallers and soldiers, one after 
another they pass in the great procession. 

For myself, I think this war, if it has not come 
too late, has come only just in time to save England. 
A great prosperity and a long peace were leading 
the nation slowly but surely toward a carelessness 
if not a disastrous decadence almost inevitable 
under such circumstances. Yet whether we win or 
lose or the battle be a drawn one, I firmly believe 
that the treasure which has been spent and the 
blood which has been spilt will not have been spent 
or spilt in vain. In regard to this particular cam- 
paign we see that in the Parliament and in the Press 
of England the slowly receding tide of unwarranted 
jubilation is giving place to an onrushing wave of 
gloom. Yet would one fain believe that underlying 
this, instead of a floor of shifting sand, there is still 
a stratum of solid purpose and idealism that will 



60 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

make itself felt, and that whatever happens to us 
the better part of the nation will never admit that 
a single soldier has died here in vain. 

There is a paragraph of Ruskin's — at the time of 
Balaclava — in which you might alter only one word 
and apply it here. 

" But I ask their witness," he says, " to whom the 
war has changed the aspect of the earth, and imagery 
of heaven, whose hopes it has cut off like a spider's 
web, whose treasure it has placed, in a moment, 
under the seals of clay. Those who can never more 
see sunrise, nor watch the climbing light gild the 
eastern clouds, without thinking what graves it has 
gilded, first, far down behind the dark earth-line — 
who never more shall see the crocus bloom in spring, 
without thinking what dust it is that feeds the wild- 
flowers of Gallipoli. Ask their witness, and see if 
they will not reply that it is well with them and 
with theirs ; that they would have it not otherwise ; 
would not, if they might, receive back their gifts 
of love and life, nor take again the purple of their 
blood out of the cross on the breastplate of England. 
Ask them : and though they should answer only 
with a sob, listen if it does not gather upon their lips 
into the sound of the old Seyton war-cry — ' Set 
on ! ' " 

With all my love, 

Yours, 

M. 



ON THE FRINGES OF WAR 

THERE comes a time in most military operations 
nowadays when equal opposing armies, 
however bravely they fight, must halt to draw 
breath. That time is utilized by them in the gentle 
art of " consolidating the position." Such a stage 
was reached in September in the Gallipoli campaign, 
and it was evident that there would be a dull week 
or two for the War Correspondents. It occurred to 
them that, in such circumstances, the fringes of the 
invaded country might prove even more interesting 
than the battle-ground itself, so one fine morning 
they set out down the -ZEgean for the picturesque 
and interesting Island of Mytilene. 

Certain it was that among the islands of the iEgean, 
and along the coast of Asia — almost, though not 
quite, within sound of our guns — events of historic 
interest that went unrecorded were happening. 
The splendid work of our Navy in these waters 
would alone make a glowing page in history. But, 
alas ! the chroniclers of the Navy are so full of 
modesty that many a deed of derring do will never 
be told as it should be. 

For a time the presence of enemy submarines 
61 



62 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

seemed to send the ships of the Allied fleets scurrying 
for security into boomed harbours, but it was soon 
evident that the German submarines could no more 
chase the British flag from the Turkish seas than 
they could clear the Atlantic or the Channel. In an 
unsuspected harbour or in the lee of some island 
you came suddenly upon battleship, cruiser, monitor, 
or destroyer — or perhaps all four — held in leash 
against the opportune moment, whenever it should 
arrive. Other ships by day and by night ploughed 
the placid seas, keeping watch and ward — for the 
Navy never sleeps. On " their lawful occasions," 
too, vessels, at anchor or slowly steaming up 
and down the coast, woke the echoes with the 
leisurely thunder of their great guns or the more 
insistent banging of their secondary armament. 
Their shells still exploded on Achi Baba ; in the 
Anzac zone you might still see bits of the Turkish 
trenches disappearing in clouds of high explosive ; 
and from Suvla Bay you could note the shrapnel 
bursting over the reinforcements coming up to join 
the hard-pressed but stubborn Turkish army in front 
of the village of Biyuik Anafarta. Anon there 
rose the deeper diapason of the bigger shells, 
ponderously tearing a pathway through the air 
over the Peninsula hills and across the Dardanelles, 
to land with a dull boom on the Asiatic coast. 
And then there was the work of our own sub- 
marines — daring, brilliant, effective — a story half 
untold, but already sufficient to thrill the most 
phlegmatic pulse. Some ships and submarines, 



ON THE FRINGES OF WAR 63 

it was true, had disappeared for ever beneath the 
waters of the gulf and of the Dardanelles, but there 
were always others to take their place, and so it was 
to the end. Meantime, in a small yacht or a North 
Sea trawler, you could steam unmolested under 
the British flag along the coast of Asia, south past 
Tenedos and other islands, on to Mytilene. At 
the former a shell from a monitor went rumbling 
overhead in search of some Turkish battery on the 
continent, and in reply a Turkish shell sent up a 
spout of water off the rocky island where the monitor 
lay. In parts where the waters narrow we steamed 
very near the Turkish coast — near enough to see 
two women walking on the beach below a deserted 
village with an old rectangular fort, built by the 
Venetians or the Genoese. But we did not go too 
close, because at any point we might be within 
reach of the bullets of the Turkish coast patrols, 
who kept watch as far south as and even beyond 
Smyrna. 

The rugged hills of Asia rise steeply or in gentle 
slopes from the water's edge, and in places great 
dykes of volcanic rock cut across their shoulders or 
crown their crests. The soil is poor, and, for the 
most part, too steep and rocky for successful culti- 
vation. Here and there a grove of olives and a 
few slender poplars relieve the monotony of sombre 
scrub, and the yellow pasture of a dry, spent summer. 

On the other side historic Mytilene, where " burn- 
ing Sappho loved and sang," lifts its high, rocky 
hills above slopes and bays, where nestle pretty 



64 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

Greek villages. The whole island seems fringed 
with olive groves. Fronting the beautiful bay, 
its shops and cafes and villas reflected in the waters 
of the curving harbour, and backed by rocky hills, 
up which the olive groves climb, lies the capital — the 
old castle and fort crowning a promontory on the 
left, a still older crumbling ruin on the beach below. 
To this place, in their thousands and scores of 
thousands, have come the refugees from the coast of 
Asia, only a few miles away, presenting a serious 
problem for the local authorities and for the Greek 
Government. The exodus began before the war — 
in May and June of 1914 — and continued until the 
island, which nominally supports a population of 
about 120,000, had 80,000 additional people cast 
upon it. The exodus, says a refugee, is the direct 
result of the policy and action of " the Committee 
of Union and Progress," established by the Young 
Turkish Party. The villages along the coast are 
essentially Greek villages, but the Young Turk 
Party was in want of money, so, under the guise 
of Ottomanizing the Greeks, it commenced to levy 
toll. It began by pretending to make soldiers of 
these people, but instead of calling upon " three 
ages," as in the case of their own people, it called 
up many more. The Greeks soon found that this 
making of them into soldiers was a mere pretence. 
The Turkish Government did not, at that time, 
want more soldiers. What it wanted was money, 
and ever more money. In accordance with this 
policy the Greek recruits were not really trained 



ON THE FRINGES OF WAR 65 

as soldiers, but were given rough work — such as 
road-making — to do, the alternative being that 
the Greeks would either buy their freedom by 
individual payments of £40 or would leave the 
country, in which latter case their property would 
be confiscated by the Turkish Government. Of the 
three things — serving as so-called soldiers, buying 
their, freedom, or leaving the country and their 
property — the Greeks who came within the scope 
of the proclamation generally chose the last, and 
so the migration to Mytilene began. 

From Aivali, with 30,000 inhabitants, and all the 
villages to Smyrna, and even farther south, the 
exodus continued, till at one time there must have 
been 80,000 refugees in Mytilene. Since then some 
of these had extended their migration to Salonika, 
Macedonia, Kavalla, and Piraeus. In the villages 
in Asia Minor, whence these migrants had come, 
there were only old men and women and boys left. 
What was happening to them no one knew, for the 
father or the son on Mytilene dare not return to the 
continent. Communication between the island and 
the mainland was stopped, unless by some brigand 
or by some spy, risking a venture under cover of the 
darkness. For it was not only the Greek peasant 
who had come to the island from the continent. 
In the capital you might hear the report of a revolver 
in the night-time, and German gold was at work 
there as elsewhere. But so long as the olives were 
yet to gather the remaining population of the coastal 
villages would not be maltreated, though they 



66 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

might be half starved. One did not like to speculate 
upon what might happen when winter came. Even 
in Mytilene, where the Greek Government made an 
allowance of six francs a month per head, one saw 
whole families sleeping in the streets, or camped, 
with all their little lares and penates done up in a 
bundle, under some olive tree by the wayside. In 
Asia Minor the flocks and the herds and the houses, 
both of Greeks and Armenians, had been taken. 
After the picking of the olives it might be the turn 
of the women and children to be taken. Many had 
already disappeared. 

A young lace-maker, brought into the house 
of a friend, had a sad story to tell. The old serving 
woman had sadder tales. At the soup-kitchen 
where an English journalist was providing a dinner 
for refugee children, there was a pretty dark-eyed 
girl of nine or ten, fending for herself and her baby 
sister — the sole survivors of a family. What had 
happened to the others she did not know. Many 
of these refugees, now in poverty, were a few months 
ago well-to-do. The young Greek, of quiet and 
charming manner — married to an Englishwoman of 
a family that had been in Turkey for about two 
hundred years, and through whose efforts this 
soup-kitchen was maintained — had, on the way 
thither, watched the smoke of his burning estate 
rising across the straits. On the mainland he 
occupied the position almost of a feudal baron, 
taking an interest in the welfare of the peasantry, 
their churches, and their institutions. But he, like 



ON THE FRINGES OF WAR 67 

the others, had to seek refuge in the neighbouring 
island. One had been told stories of massacre 
that one did not believe — such as the body of a girl 
having been hung up in a butcher's shop, and pieces 
of flesh cut off and thrown at the passing Christians. 
This man said witnesses of the incident could be 
produced. He brought in one whose friends and 
relatives saw it. That was the nearest we could 
get to the truth. But of rapine and murder, done 
in the broad light of day in the highways and by- 
ways, there were tales in plenty, and they were true 
tales. Actual photographs bore witness of such. 
It might be that one side was no more blameworthy 
than the other : that it was six of one and half a 
dozen of the other — that one day the Turk did the 
massacring and another day the so-called Christian. 
Even our friend who was succouring these Greeks — 
who were Turkish subjects — did not blame the 
Turks altogether. He said they were instigated by 
others. Among the women gathered about the 
soup-kitchen was one who saw many of the foul 
deeds done on the opposite coast. By disguising 
herself as an old woman, she escaped notice, and 
secured her own safety, while her friends and rela- 
tions were butchered or carried off to Turkish houses. 
Many girls were taken into the interior, and their 
fate and whereabouts were still unknown. 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 

ANY one who lives through the great war 
will have in the years to come precious 
memories of the habitations in which he has hoped 
and feared and endured. The recollections will 
not be all pleasant ones, yet the shadows will serve 
only to heighten the high lights that illumine the 
picture. 

It seems a long time now since we steamed, with 
lights out, past the Cyclades and the Sporades and 
entered the blue JEgea.ii. At Lemnos we changed 
from troopship to trawler, — a premonition of the 
transition from Shepheard's in Cairo to a Dug-out 
on Gallipoli ! 

Imbros, a long silver-grey shadow, appeared 
out of the moonlight that paved our wake with 
burnished silver. Then, glowing like fire-flies in a 
forest, came the lights of Anzac, and with them the 
desultory crackle of rifle fire, the dull boom of 
bombs, and the loud reports of a destroyer's guns. 
We landed in the darkness — for the moon had gone 
down into the Sea of Saros — and a cloaked figure 
with a lantern led us to two small caverns in a pile 

63 





Abodes of an Anzac. 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 69 

of stores. In our clothes we laid ourselves down 
and tried to sleep, but rats and a combined and 
overpowering odour of cheese and tarpaulin soon 
shifted us into an " office." I went to bed on the 
office table, safe at least from the rats. As dawn 
slowly came the walls resolved themselves into a 
mosaic of boxes with a decorative stencilling of 
" Biscuits, 40 lbs." on each one. Shadowy patches 
on the tarpaulin roof turned to constellations of 
sleeping flies that were presently to awake to a 
superactivity that made life in the daytime almost 
unendurable. In the morning I moved up to 
" Wellington Terrace," where the New Zealand 
General had his primitive and rather unsafe head- 
quarters, and the next night I slept the sleep of the 
just and the tired on the open pathway that led 
past the bivouacs and on up to the heights of Anzac. 
Among others I was introduced to a member of the 
House of Commons, who set two Turkish prisoners 
to dig me a dug-out next to his own. 

They were good fellows, those Turks, and they 
made me an excellent dug-out in the side of the hill. 
It had two rafters supporting a galvanized iron roof. 
And it had a door hung with a grey blanket, and a 
little window across which was stretched some 
netting to keep out the flies. A ledge of hard 
clay was for many weeks my bed, and, hard as it was, 
I became quite used to it after about a week, in 
which I got a new idea of anatomy — especially of the 
hip joints. The corrugated iron roof was covered 
with gravelly clay that was supposed to withstand 



70 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

shrapnel and dropping bullets, but that was an 
illusion that lasted not many days. Sandbags 
would have served the purpose, but there were 
not half enough sandbags for the men in the 
trenches. For the rest the roof kept out most of 
the rain, and, beyond the Indian burying-ground 
in the immediate foreground, one never tired of the 
glorious views of Imbros and Samothrace set in the 
silver ^Egean. Many a time one seemed to earn the 
Victoria Cross going to and from that dug-out, but I 
was never hit, save by flying stones and dirt from 
bursting shells. These came from three directions 
— the Anafarta gun on the left, our friend " Beachy 
Bill" on the right, and, latterly, from a howitzer 
that lobbed shells over the hill from behind. Never- 
theless, when the time came to move on, it was 
with a pang of sincere regret that I left my first 
dug-out. And though other occupants came into 
it and improved it when material became more 
plentiful, I could seldom pass it without a longing 
to go inside. 

It was in that August when there was much 
bloody fighting that we moved out with the New 
Zealand Division to No. 2 Outpost from which we 
had to make the attack on the left. There, in an 
Otago Colonel, I met an old friend. It was the 
night of the commencement of the great battle 
and the Suvla landing. In front of his dug-out 
we sat long in the darkness talking. And when he 
buckled on his harness and went out into the night 
for the last time he presented me with his dug-out. 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 71 

Next morning I saw him in the Casualty Clearing 
Station mortally wounded. He was conscious but 
could not speak, yet when he heard my name 
mentioned he looked round at me, and the old 
pleasant smile that his friends and his men knew 
so well lit up his face for the last time. 

Of that dug-out I have no happy memories. It 
comes to me in my dreams sometimes as a night- 
mare. It is the darkest shadow in the whole 
picture. But for weeks I lived and worked in it, 
suffering my share of illness and pestilence. It is 
from that dug-out that I date the loss of relatives 
and friends. Men were killed and wounded all 
about it. Not a day passed without some casualty 
occurring in the immediate vicinity. In the dug- 
out just behind it, another colonel, whose close 
friendship I had made at Anzac, fell dead shot 
through the head while talking to a friend. A hard- 
working Peer of the Realm was wounded while 
walking near the Hospital. My own servant was 
shot through the legs. And so it went on for weeks 
and weeks. 

j. One might have made quite a safe dug-out in 
that hillside by digging, but somehow one never 
thought of doing so. Funk-holes in those days 
were not de rigueur, and there was always at the back 
of one's head an idea that it would not be sporting 
to dig into greater safety than one's neighbour. 
The General was just as bad as the rest of us. He 
took all the risks, and, in addition, no one could keep 
him out of the trenches. 



72 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

When I went to bed in my dug-out my head and 
my body were safe from dropping bullets, but not 
my legs. One shell dropping in the right place 
would have blown me and my bivouac out of exist- 
ence. And this, mind you, was at Divisional 
Headquarters. In France during the battle of the 
Somme one visited the Headquarters of a famous 
Division that was in the thick of the fight, and was 
made welcome in the dining-room of a great chateau 
with a walled garden and beautiful grounds, beyond 
the reach not only of bullets but of shells. Four or 
five miles from the firing- line, the contrast with our 
circumscribed area on Gallipoli could not fail to 
strike home. 

In this new dug-out there was not room to stand 
up, let alone to indulge in the proverbial exercise 
of swinging a cat. So I had to do my writing sitting 
on the floor, with my back against one wall and my 
feet pushed into a little recess scooped out of the 
opposite wall with my pocket-knife. Only a few 
yards away was the Casualty Clearing Station, and 
while I wrote of battles I had to listen to the moaning 
of the wounded and the dying. And in the mornings 
" the sour damp smell of death " pervaded my 
dwelling, for just below the mouth of my little 
cavern, laid out in a row, with their grey blankets 
over them, were those who had died in the night 
and were awaiting burial. In such a situation it 
was hard to get used to the plague of innumerable 
flies, that, as soon as the sun rose, began to fill 
one's dug out. Poor food, thirst, heat, dust, flies, 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 73 

dysentery and jaundice were the constant companions 
of those who lived here. 

My friend the Member of Parliament went away 
sick, and, seeing my plight, gave me his dug-out 
during his absence. It was in a small fort on top 
of a little hill, and in comparison with my little cave 
was quite a palace. It had a galvanized iron roof, 
a camp bed, and a small library. About it was a 
maze of deep trenches, some of them originally 
made by the Turks. One wall and one end of my 
new dug-out was of hard clay, the other wall and 
the other end were built up of sandbags. A piece 
of mosquito netting, hung in front of the door, kept 
out most of the flies, but it was cooler up here, and 
there were no dead except those that were already 
buried, so the flies were fewer. The book-case was 
an ammunition-box. It seemed strange in this 
place, the dug-out of an English M.P., to read in his 
Iliad of how in ancient days, not far from here — 

The sacred soil of Ilios was rent 

With shaft and pit ; foiled waters wandering slow 
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went 

To war with gods and heroes long ago. 

The little fort was well within reach of the Turkish 
shells, and even of their machine guns and rifles. 
There was one sniper who used to fire continuously 
at the sandbagged end of the dug-out. The phut ! 
phut ! phut ! of his bullets came with an irritating 
regularity. Weeks afterwards when the M.P. came 
back I told him to beware of this persistent fellow, 
as I felt that he would succeed in boring a hole 



74 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

right through the wall. And sure enough he did, for 
one day my friend found one of the sharp-pointed 
Turkish bullets on the floor in front of his bed. 

This dug-out had many advantages, but one 
serious drawback. Only a few yards away was a 
concealed mountain gun that banged off at the 
first streak of dawn and at other uncertain intervals. 
It was bad enough to be unceremoniously awakened 
out of one's beauty sleep in this way, but in addition 
I was always in mortal terror that the Turks would 
locate that gun and land a high explosive shell 
into the fort, in which case I should read no more 
in the Iliad. 

It was an uncanny place in which to sleep, for 
one had no immediate neighbours, and the situation 
produced a new sensation in sound. The sounds 
were different from those I had become accustomed 
to in my own cave fronting the beach. The groans 
of the wounded, the rattle of the mule carts coming 
and going in the darkness, and the chatter of the 
Indians loading up with sandbags and bombs, did 
not penetrate so far. In their stead came the tat- 
tat-tat-ing of the machine guns and the phut-phut- 
phut-ing of the bullets against the wall of my 
habitation : at intervals the loud report of one of 
our own guns, followed by the echo from this knoll, 
straining the drums of the ears and shaking down 
little bits of gritty earth from the walls of the dug- 
out. Out of this boom and echo, lasting for several 
seconds, came the tearing noise of the shell through 
the air, gradually diminishing as it gained distance 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 75 

but lost velocity. Then the far-off explosion, with, 
we hoped, death in its train. For a time I read by 
the light of a candle, and then the Greek servant — 
named Christ the Carpenter — entered and spread his 
master's British warm across my feet. Occasionally 
in the night there would arise bursts of rifle and 
machine-gun fire, and reports of high-explosive 
shells thrown upon some Turkish trench. Then 
I would get up, and, peering over the parapet, 
watch the spurts of red flame in the darkness and the 
beautiful star-shells soaring heavenward to burst 
and fall in a graceful shower of falling meteors. I 
was sorry when the time came to leave this dwelling- 
place. 

Our next move was into a little gully just over 
the hill, where we thought we should be safer from 
shot and shell. There we had a more elaborate 
system of dug-outs, but we could get no iron, or very 
little, and the dropping bullets occasionally came 
through our tarpaulin roofs. There were two such 
bullet-holes in my roof, and one night the water 
collected in a pool and suddenly ran down upon me 
as I was lying asleep in bed. Then the Turkish 
gunners found us out, and men were killed and 
wounded in our new headquarters. One day, when 
some particularly heavy shelling started, I came to 
the door of my dug-out and saw the General's mess 
suddenly go up in a cloud of black, high-explosive 
smoke. By the merest chance I was not at that 
moment writing in the adjoining mess, which also 
suffered. 



76 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

In this dug-out I lay for days ill, often watching 
the shells bursting a few yards away, and wondering 
when my turn would come. By this time we had 
made " funk-holes " well into the side of the hill — 
four men were killed and two badly wounded digging 
the first one — and when the shelling started we were 
supposed to hurry into these. Once I rose from my 
sick-bed, and, hastily donning some clothing, sought 
refuge in the dark recesses of one of these vaults. 
But it was frigidly cold and draughty, and, thinking 
a sudden death by shell-fire preferable to a lingering 
one from pneumonia, I went back to bed. Through 
the open door of my dug-out I watched the shrapnel 
hitting up the dirt on the path in front. A man 
passing was hit in the neck and the wound bled 
profusely. 

Soon after my arrival at Anzac the General Staff 
decided that all the War Correspondents should be 
herded together in a special camp on the Island of 
Imbros. Protests were in vain, and threats would 
no doubt have meant being shot at dawn ! But in 
regard to myself and the Australian Correspondent, 
the Commander-in-Chief gave us permission to live 
a great deal with our own men on the Peninsula. 
After waiting on a shell-swept beach at Anzac for 
over an hour, I boarded a belated trawler and crossed 
to the island. At Kephalos some ships had been 
sunk to make a harbour. A dusty road led past a 
semicircular smelly beach upon which seaweed was 
rotting in the hot sun, and on through a row of tents 
on the one hand and Greek canteens on the other. 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 77 

Inland, the island rose in a series of ilex-covered 
hills of volcanic rock, very beautiful in colouring. 
The bay was filled with battleships, cruisers, de- 
stroyers, and ships of various size and kind. Later 
seaplanes, aeroplanes, and the " Silver Sausage " — 
a small airship — came and went, and strange- 
looking " blister " cruisers and stranger-looking 
monitors with huge guns took up anchorage there. 
We were in the midst of all the growing complexities 
of modern warfare. 

About the Greek canteens the " Tommies " and 
the flies appeared to swarm in equal numbers, the 
former buying at ruinous prices choice articles of 
food, and the latter doing their best to poison it 
before it could be eaten. A crowd had gathered 
about a table on which a recalcitrant labourer was 
being beaten. Egyptians and Greeks looked on. 
" Wot are they doin' there ? " asked a passing 
' ' Tommy. " ' ' Dunno, ' ' came the prompt reply from 
the other soldier ; "I fancy they're electin' another 
King o' Greece ! " 

In front of a windowless stone house sat a decrepit 
Greek, with a dark-eyed, olive-complexioned girl 
in shabby dress and stockinged feet, gazing idly 
at the soldiers. An old crone hobbled about in the 
background. The other and younger Greeks went 
on selling their eggs and onions, their chocolate 
and tomatoes. And only across the way was Ida, 
catching the last rays of the setting sun, and at 
its feet Scamander and Simois, where once Poseidon 
sat enthroned. Shades of Menelaus and Helen and 



78 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

all the great ones of their time ! How were the 
mighty fallen ! 

No one seemed to know where the War Corre- 
spondents' Camp was, but at last I came suddenly 
upon it in a vineyard fringed with umbrageous trees, 
and at a table in the shade of these trees a young 
man, bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves, at his al- 
fresco meal. This was a famous War Correspondent. 
In the stirring times to come, we were to see a good 
deal of each other, and to share many dangers and 
adventures in common. But in so far as I was con- 
cerned the War Correspondents' Camp existed only 
in the imagination of the General Staff. There was 
no tent for me, but eventually I slept in a tent 
where there were two machine guns, and next day I 
got my own. 

In time, largely through the determination of 
my fellow scribe, and the genius of an interpreter, 
half Scot, half Serb, who had among other things 
been manager of the Moulin Rouge, we made this 
camp quite a pleasant place, at once the joy of all 
invited to it and the envy of all who passed by. 
Bartlett, Nevinson, Lawrence, and Russell, who were 
the British Correspondents, lived there nearly all the 
time, making pilgrimages to the Peninsula, while 
Bean and I, who lived mostly at Anzac, came to it 
occasionally as a haven of refuge, where, in safety 
from the Turkish shells and bullets, we could write 
up — as far as the Censor would allow — the doings 
of our own men. There, also, we could get some 
good food, and Greek wine. Lawrence had made a 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 79 

journey to Malta and had returned with food and 
drink and a Maltese cook. That feat, but more 
especially the getting of a Maltese cook within the 
zone of war, will remain for ever his magnum opus. 
But the cook did not turn out to be all our fancy 
painted him. He lasted only a little longer than the 
wine. We gave him £10 and shipped him back to 
his native island, and a young Greek, who was a 
Turkish subject and a refugee, was installed in his 
stead. 

Across the island were the picturesque villages 
of Isotherace, Panagia, and Castro, and to these we 
made occasional pilgrimages for more food and wine. 
These journeys are still pleasant memories. 
Mounted on the little Balkan ponies, led by sandalled 
Greeks across the mountain paths, we formed quite 
a cavalcade and looked for all the world like a 
scene from a Passion play. In the gullies there 
was a wealth of fern and bracken and scented ver- 
bena, and many other wild-flowers. The mulberry 
trees were laden with ripe fruit. Greek peasants — 
generally the women — were threshing their scanty 
store of corn, beating it out in the old way with the 
hooves of horses or bullocks or asses that they drove 
round and round the narrow, stone-flagged circles that 
dotted the land. Afterwards the corn was ground 
in mills driven by the iEgean winds. At the top 
of the pass we came upon a fountain from which 
the water was slowly trickling from the solid basalt, 
clear and cool. Crickets sang in the hot sun, and 
butterflies — brown, and golden yellow, and palest 



80 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

blue — flew across the mountain path — a path that 
looked as if it had been made in the time of Caesar 
and had not been repaired since. We came upon 
flocks of goats with tinkling bells, and upon vine- 
yards and olive groves. But for the distant boom 
of a ship's gun firing on Achi Baba one might have 
imagined that there was no such thing as war. 
And yet next day we were in the very midst of it. 

As the hot summer passed, and autumn came 
quickly on his heels, we bethought us that we could 
not much longer live in tents, so we sought for a 
less airy and more enduring habitation. On the 
side of a hill about a mile away, there was a small 
village of stone houses, and among them one that 
was almost new. It was a veritable castle, for it 
had two stories. That is, it had one room on top of 
the other two. We discovered the owner, after 
having decided upon a price which to offer him. 
But first of all we asked the Greek what he would 
take. This, coming from men of a literary turn, 
was a real inspiration, and, to our amazement, the 
Greek demanded only about half what we were 
prepared to give. Having sufficiently recovered 
from the shock, without giving any undue indication 
of the fact, we told him his price was too high, and 
offered him a still lower sum. Finally we split the 
difference and the house was ours. Afterwards 
we found that a friend with the true commercial 
instinct had got a house at a still cheaper rate ! 

In late autumn we moved in. Soon afterwards 
Sir Ian Hamilton, who had been recalled from the 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 81 

Dardanelles, came with some members of his per- 
sonal staff riding up the pathway to say good-bye 
to us. He smiled when he saw our quarters, the 
rude little stone house through which the wind 
whistled, and he expressed regret that he had not 
brought along the official photographer to make a 
picture of it. But with haughty pride we pointed 
to its two stories, and told him that it was the finest 
thing in architecture on the island since the time 
of Pericles. This seemed to amuse him, and from 
that day we dated our letters from the Chateau 
Pericles. 

From the owner of the Chateau we bought 
attenuated vegetables and diminutive eggs at 
prices that made amends for anything that his 
want of temerity might have cost him in the matter 
of rent. His wife, we hoped, would do our washing 
in the intervals in which she was not engaged in 
agriculture. She was no doubt a direct descendant 
of the Venus Milo, but she did not look like it. 
Indeed, she was no longer beautiful. She was, of 
course, suitably draped — in very baggy trousers 
gathered in at the ankles, a bodice of rural design, 
and about her classic brow a bandage so faded that 
it might have come from some derelict Field Ambu- 
lance after a strenuous battle. Her baggy trousers 
gave her a somewhat comic look when she walked- 
especially when she was going away from one. 

On the whole we were fairly happy in the Chateau 
Pericles. There were now only three of us, for 
Bartlett had gone to London, and Nevinson was at 

G 



82 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

Salonika. Bean and Lawrence occupied the upper 
room of our castle, and I a dark, narrow chamber 
down below, in which most of the room was taken 
up by two great corn-bins made of stone covered 
with a plaster of mud and straw. There were other 
inhabitants besides myself here, including mice. As 
my room was also the store-room, and the mice 
had a penchant for macaroni and candles, they 
remained with me to the last. The third room of 
the Chateau Pericles we used as a dining- and a 
writing-room, but one had to beware, for the room 
above had a wooden floor with great cracks in it, 
and when the floor was being scrubbed, or when at 
rare intervals its occupants had a bath, the man 
below was apt to get a bath also. 

Our servants occupied a room outside, and the 
cook was given an outhouse that all our ingenuity 
failed to make watertight. After a time he showed 
a decided inclination to become a levanter in more 
than the original sense, so we had to put the fear 
of God and the P.M. into him. If he did not cook 
for us, we said we would hand him over to the Turks. 
Failing that, he might have to join the Greek Army. 
At the thought of this he grew pale. But we 
maintained our biggest hold on him by always 
keeping at least a fortnight of his wages in hand, 
for, to a Greek, the fear of all his gods, temporal 
and spiritual, is as nothing to the dread of losing 
earned increment. Poor beggar ! he did not have a 
very hilarious time, for he had no one to talk to, 
and our servants, I fear, rather bullied him. Turner's 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 83 

English and Maloney's Irish brogue were too much 
for him, while our Greek was not what it ought to 
be. Apparently, also, the Greek and the Celt do 
no assimilate, for one day I found the Greek cook 
chasing Maloney around our demesne with a knife. 
When Greek meets Greek there is supposed to be a 
tussle, but when Greek meets Celt, then the real 
fun begins. Maloney was on the run till he reached 
the wood-pile, from which, in passing, he grabbed 
an axe. I came upon the scene as the enemy was 
about to counter-attack, and, at the risk of my own 
life, prevented bloodshed. Maloney said the cook 
had " disinsulted " him, but as he must have 
" disinsulted " him in Greek I could not ascertain 
how Maloney became aware of the fact. For a time 
the battle was continued with words, the com- 
batants having been persuaded to lay aside the axe 
and the knife, but, what with the cook's incoherent 
Greek and Maloney's excited and tearful Irish, it was 
difficult for one to maintain that solemnity of 
feature that is so necessary an adjunct to discipline 
and authority. But in the end my persuasion won 
the day, and Peace once more folded her wings and 
perched above the lintel of the one door that led 
into the Chateau Pericles. 

I have one other memory of the Chateau Pericles 
that will not fade while memory lasts. It was during 
the great blizzard that played havoc with our lines 
of communications and strewed our beaches with 
wreckage. I am alone in the Chateau. Bean is 
stormbound on the Peninsula, and Lawrence, 



84 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

who after a delay that almost proved disastrous 
had perforce gone off to Egypt for clothes, is vainly 
endeavouring to get passage back again. Ugh ! 
how the cold wind shrieks about the gables and 
whistles through the cracks and crannies. At times 
it comes moaning with splashes of rain. It is a 
regular tempest, with the thunder growling above 
it all. The elements as well as the nations are at 
war. A blinding flash has just lit up the gloom, and 
the crashing thunder comes with the roar of a 
fourteen-inch gun, only that it reverberates longer 
among the rocky hills of the island. Turner, the 
mildest-mannered of men, who was in five bayonet 
charges and has a good toll of Turks to his credit, 
has come in with a swirl of wind and rain to tell me 
that our Greek cook is " drownded out." " Well 
'ave to shift the iron on 'is roof round the other 
way, sir," he continues, adding cheerfully, " There's 
another storm comin' up on top o' this one, sir. 
Looks as if it's goin' to be a regular snorter." And 
it was ! 

From the dug-outs of Gallipoli and the Chateau 
Pericles on Imbros to a hospital in Cairo, thence 
to the luxury of Shepheard's, and on to a tent in 
the desert at Lake Timsah, I went by uncertain 
stages, never knowing what a day or an hour might 
bring forth. Months afterwards it was a pleasant 
change to meet the British War Correspondents, and, 
for a time, to be their honoured guest in a real 
chateau in France, with a great garden, a tennis 
lawn, a billiard table, and five motor-cars at their 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 8$ 

disposal. There I slept in a great high-ceilinged 
room into which almost you could have put the 
whole of the Chateau Pericles, and all the dug-outs 
I ever had on Gallipoli. 

And yet there are times when wistful eyes look 
back across the fields of France and the leagues of 
sea that separate me from my old bodes at Anzac. 



GOOD-BYE TO ABDUL 

EARLY in December, 1915, it was stated in 
the House of Lords that a well-known 
General had recommended the evacuation of the 
British and French armies on Gallipoli. The state- 
ment was an extraordinary one to make public at 
such a time, and the soldiers were furious. But on 
second thoughts we said to ourselves: "Well, 
the Turks will never think we are going to abandon 
the expedition, because if we were we should not be 
such damned fools as to say so." Even the Germans 
were misled into that idea. 

The Berliner Tageblatt stated that the Dardanelles 
undertaking would have been abandoned long ago 
if it were as easy to get out of the jaws of the Hon 
as to get into them. 

Yet in a few weeks' time we were off the Peninsula 
and enjoying our Christmas dinner far away from 
Gallipoli. The beast had been disappointed of his 
prey at Anzac. The jaws of the Turko-German Hon 
had snapped ; but they had snapped a little too late. 
The story of how the enemy was outwitted is a 
fascinatingly interesting^one ; but it cannot even 

86 



ABODES OF AN ANZAC 87 

yet be told in detail. The joke of the whole thing, 
apparently, was that the Turks, instead of thinking 
we were evacuating, thought we were landing three 
new divisions to make another attack. But what- 
ever happened, there can be not the least doubt 
that the Turkish commander was left lamenting the 
fact that he had at least failed to scupper our rear- 
guard, and that he did not even capture one solitary 
machine gun. 

The great thing from our point of view was to 
make it appear from day to day as if events were 
running their ordinary course. The cleverness and 
the resource with which this was accomplished will 
one day pass into history in detail. The final opera- 
tion orders were a model of clear thinking and 
organization from the main principles down to the 
smallest detail of the Great Adventure. One and 
all, from the highest commands down to the privates 
in the trenches, carried them out with a loyal co- 
operation and enthusiasm worthy of the best 
traditions of our race. To a non-combatant on the 
Peninsula carefully watching events from day to 
day the position appeared to bristle with difficulties, 
some of which it seemed almost hopeless to sur- 
mount. To such an extent was this the case that 
the final triumphant success, when it did come, was 
a little difficult of realization. 

Towards the close of the Great Adventure the 
humorists got to work, and it was no uncommon 
sight to see a comfortable dug-out bearing the 
notice — A Louer. Many of the men left messages for 



88 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

Abdul — " A Merry Christmas " and " Good wishes 
for the New Year.'* One gunnery officer gathered 
together all the bottles he could find and piled them 
outside the mess. " The Turk," he said, " will 
think our last strafe was the result of a great carou- 
sal." One battery away on the right left its mess- 
table set with bully beef, a bottle of whisky, and 
some other odds and ends, " With compliments 
to the commander of ' Beachy Bill.' " On the table 
in another dug-out there was left a gramophone, 
wound up and with the needle on the record ready 
to give out the tune. The air was " The Turkish 
Patrol." 

In our mess, however sad or serious we might be 
inwardly, we managed at least to maintain a cheer- 
ful exterior, extending mock sympathy to the " die- 
hards," and charring each other as to the various 
capacities that we should presently be appearing in 
at Constantinople. 

The idea was sedulously cultivated that the men 
were going into rest camps ; but the intelligence 
of the colonial troops was too keen to permit of the 
continuance of this deception. A query to the O.C. 
Artillery as to when his second lot of guns were 
going into the " rest camp " elicited only a smile, 
and a suggestion that the guns were getting tired 
was an insult that rankled but could not be replied 
to. 

In the dug-outs, in the trenches, and in the 
artillery observation posts various kindly messages, 
and even presents of food, were left for our gallant 



GOOD-BYE TO ABDUL 89 

foes. One New Zealand artillery officer, whose 
skull was laid bare by a shell that came through 
the roof of his observation post, left a message for the 
Turkish gunners to say that the shell " did not get 
him." That same officer carried on till his gun was 
withdrawn and safely placed on board an outgoing 
ship. 

But underlying all this fun and frolic that is so 
well-recognized a trait of British character in the 
presence of extreme danger, there was a deeper 
feeling of sadness that we should be leaving, without 
a further struggle, the ground so dearly won — the 
ilex-covered valleys and hills, gained and held with 
the life's blood of so many of the noblest and best 
of New Zealand's and Australia's sons. Somewhat 
poetically one of the New Zealand soldiers put this 
phase of thought to his Battalion Commander : 
" I hope, sir," he said, " that those fellows who lie 
buried along the Dere will be soundly sleeping and 
not hear us as we march away." The idea that his 
dead comrades might think the living were forsaking 
them seemed to have made a deep impression on his 
mind. 

The spirit of the men towards the close was 
splendid. As the last days drew near the suspense 
grew greater. Did the Turks know that we were 
evacuating ? Would they attack at the last mo- 
ment our attenuated lines ? These were questions 
that were ever uppermost in our minds ; but even 
up to the last day we had a supreme confidence in 
our ability to repel any Turkish attack that might 



go LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

be launched upon us. The New Zealand General — 
now in command of the Army Corps — finally took 
all ranks into his confidence, and issued an order 
expressing his trust in their discretion and their 
high soldierly qualities to carry out a task the suc- 
cess of which would largely depend upon their 
individual efforts. In the case of an attack he 
expressed himself confident that the men who had 
to their credit such deeds as the original landing 
at Anzac, the repulse of the big Turkish attack on 
May 18, the capture of Lone Pine, the Apex, and 
Hill 60, would hold their ground with the same 
valour and steadfastness as heretofore, however small 
in numbers they might be. The splendid spirit of 
the men at the finish showed that this confidence was 
not misplaced. 

On the Friday I went into the firing line on the 
Apex — the highest ground won in all the fighting — 
and found the New Zealanders, who still occupied 
that post of honour, tumbling over one another to 
be the last to leave. The Colonel commanding one 
battalion called for thirty volunteers from two 
companies. Every man in each company volun- 
teered. Men were coming to their commanders and 
begging that they might be allowed to be in the 
last lot to go. 

" Do let me stay," said one man. " I was in the 
landing, and I should like to be one of the last to 
leave." 

It was just the same with the Australians — they 
all wanted to be in the " Diehards." 



GOOD-BYE TO ABDUL 91 

" Have you many volunteers for the ' Die- 
hards ' ? " I asked one commander. 

" Every mother's son of them wants to be a ' Die- 
hard ' ! " he replied. 

And this, mind you, was at a time when we 
thought that most of the " Diehards " would, for a 
certainty, be either killed, wounded, or taken 
prisoner — at a time when a little jumpiness and 
hesitation might very well have been expected. 
In one position on the left, when the last lot assem- 
bled at the cookhouse, it was found that there 
were two missing. One had gone back to the firing 
line for his pipe, the other for something he had left 
behind in his bivouac ! 

With such excellent organization on the part of 
the staff, and such brave and loyal co-operation and 
sang-froid on the part of the officers and men in the 
trenches, it is perhaps, after all, not to be wondered 
at that the Turks were busy shelling the vacant 
trenches and the deserted beaches a day after men, 
mules, and guns were already well across the Gulf of 
Saros, in the language of the official dispatch, " to 
be employed elsewhere." They had triumphantly 
succeeded in one of the most difficult of operations — 
in a feat that is unique in the annals of warfare. 



INTO THE DESERT 

IT is winter, and we are in Egypt again. The 
second season since the war began is in full 
swing at Cairo, but the tropic suits and gay gowns 
of the rich cosmopolitan tourists are no longer to 
be seen. Khaki still reigns. Generals and Colonels 
and Majors and all the other official ranks fill the 
two dining-rooms and the grill-room at Shepheard's. 
A countess from the Continent, a few officers' wives, 
overseas nurses in their drab grey relieved with scar- 
let capes — the Canadians strikingly tall and hand- 
some in their well-cut military dark blue and shining 
gilt buttons — mingle with the Khaki throng. At din- 
ner a band plays, and on Saturday evenings there is a 
dance in the splendid, domed Moorish Hall. At the 
Continental it is very much the same. Other well- 
known hotels are shut, or are used as hospitals. 
The Heliopolis Hotel — the largest in the world — 
houses only sick and wounded. There are few of 
the latter now. The Semiramis boards and lodges 
a hundred and fifty nurses — mostly unemployed. 
Later there may be work for them to do, but at 
present there is no fighting in our zone. The army 

93 



94 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

is " somewhere in Egypt," doing desert marches, 
building roads and railways, laying pipe and tele- 
graph lines, and making trenches. A " Tommy " 
writes home to his mother to say that he is in a 
strange country inhabited mostly by natives. He 
says that where he is camped there are no shops — 
only sand. He walks out a mile or two and there 
is more blanky sand. He adds a line asking her to 
tell father that there is no use coming out here to 
grow rhubarb ! 

The new Colonial troops are interested : the old 
ones are " fed up," because a year ago they had 
their fill of the desert. They do not forget the 
manoeuvres on the hills beyond the old Mena 
Camp, nor the trying marches to the detested third 
white tower and back that made them fit to storm 
the heights of Anzac. The " Tommy," like the 
average man, is never quite contented with his lot. 
At one time he is longing for a fight : at another 
he is longing to get out of it. 

From a damp dug-out on Gallipoli to the luxurious 
appointments of Shepheard's is a far cry and a 
pleasant change, but, after a time, the conventions, 
and even the menus, of civilization begin to lose 
their novelty and their charm, and you long for 
variety. The day comes when you experience a 
sense of elation in buying another camp-bed and a 
canvas bucket, and all the other odds and ends 
lost, stolen, or strayed, on Gallipoli. With the 
green fields of the Delta flying past you in the 
train, you feel that you may be once more getting 



INTO THE DESERT 95 

back to " the real thing " — to new thrills and sen- 
sations. The palms and the mud villages, the tall 
robed fellahin toiling in his field, the singing sakeer 
flooding the land by the power of its patient circling 
oxen, the sheep and goats following the shepherd 
as in the time of Moses, are left behind, and that 
night with a feeling of supreme contentment you 
unfold your bed under the canvas roof on a floor 
of the clean desert sand. Your batman takes the 
place of the big dark Berberin who served you in 

Cairo. You are with the Army again. 

***** 

It is not so easy as it seems to get to the new 
front. Leaving your camp in the early morning, 
you have a long day and varied means of locomotion 
ahead of you, first a motor-car, and then a motor- 
launch along the Canal. The Canal is always 
interesting, and more interesting now than ever. 
In spite of the Turco-German menace, ships that 
prove the maritime might of Britain and of the 
Greater Britain beyond the Seas still pass up and 
down between Suez and Port Said unchallenged 
and unharmed. A hundred and fifty miles away 
at Beersheba, the Turkish headquarters are no 
nearer their goal than they were a year ago. A 
patrol away out in the desert, a spy caught swim- 
ming the Canal — these are the only near evidences 
of possible attack. Out in the desert a few huddled 
corpses — skin and bone and faded clothing — from 
which their covering of sand has blown, are still 
grimmer reminders of the fight. The beams for a 



96 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

bridge lie farther afield — evidence of a dogged 

persistence and unwarranted optimism on the part 

of our friend the enemy. He failed miserably 

then : he will fail again. 

* * * * * 

Leaving our launch we climb a sloping roadway 
on the eastern bank and find ourselves at a divisional 
headquarters. The zigzag lines of the old trenches 
with their entanglements of barbed wire are still 
there, and new wire has been added to make the 
barrier more formidable. Here the problem of 
further transport faces us, for every man, every 
horse, every mule, every camel, is at work. Event- 
ually we get three transport horses and start gaily 
on our journey eastward. It comes near to being a 
disastrous start, for the big chestnut that one of the 
party has mounted is a bolter and a buck jumper, and 
has a mouth as hard as iron. He at once proceeds 
to show off all these attributes, with the result that 
the rider is soon lying stunned on the sand. Fortu- 
nately it is sand. In due time the journey is 
resumed — in a motor-wagon, one of the party 
riding ahead on the tamest horse of the trio. 

As far as the road runs there is much traffic. A 
train with narrow wagons and a quaint little George 
Stephenson engine comes rumbling past. On the 
road motor-lorries and mule-carts come and go, and 
out on the right there is another little railway with 
a still narrower gauge. The small trucks are drawn 
by mules. They carry stone for the road — a friable 
limestone that binds fairly well after it is watered. 



INTO THE DESERT 97 

Each truck has an Australian soldier and one or 
two " gypies " on it, one man generally riding 
postilion. The black and the white, Christian and 
Mohammedan, work cheerily together in the common 
cause. The lies of the German press about shooting 
down the redifs, and that weird tale of an Australian 
officer killing two of his Indian orderlies because 
they were " guilty of clumsiness," would make our 
men smile. Anyhow, our officers never have Indian 
orderlies. 

*l* *f* *•* *P *•* 

The time passes in conversation with a Colonial 
officer who was a plumber, and has been promoted 
from the ranks. He would not appear to great 
advantage in Bond Street, nor feel quite at ease in a 
London drawing-room, but he has been at Anzac 
all the time, and has an amazing singleness of pur- 
pose in his work. The sand doesn't worry him : 
he doesn't care where he may be sent — France, 
Mesopotamia, Salonika. It is all the same to him 
so long as he is doing his bit to end the war satis- 
factorily. Yes, he would like to see the end of it. 
" Nine solid months at Anzac and only hit once : 
I've got a feeling I'll come through all right," he 
adds. He is married — a wife and three kiddies. 
They are beginning already to ask when Daddy is 
coming home, and the youngest one doesn't know 
him. But he had to go to the war. He could not 
have borne in after years, had he not gone, to have 
his children asking where were his medals ? He has 
been volunteer soldiering for years, has gone through 



98 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

every rank, and is proud that he has earned his 
commission through work and not through the death 
of another above him. He has the Tommies' un- 
shaken confidence in Kitchener. " Give ' Kitch ' 
a free hand," he says. " Let him go in, and, by 
God, I believe he'll go right through." He has 
one other pet idea — why not employ them Zulus ? 
They're good fighters, and they populate quickly, and 
have so many wives, according to what he has read, 
that it would not matter if a good many of them got 
killed off. What's the use of the White King 'avin' 
a dog if he won't let him bark ? Give 'em white 
officers and a fair number of non. corns, and they'd 
be all right. If we could make good fighters out of 
our Fijis and our Indians, why not out of them ? 
Yes, he was sure the war was going all right. One 
could not but admire his splendid optimism. He 
left to go on with his job, and made me free of his 
tent and anything that was in it. 



The question of transport again arose. It was 
solved by one man riding the tame horse, and 
the 'others getting into two things like water- 
troughs made of scantling and canvas, and slung 
high up on either side of a camel. The camel 
eyed us with a sad superciliousness as he bent 
himself in sections to the ground. We prepared 
to mount. Mahomed Ishtak of Ismailia, our 
camel-driver, let a broad grin overspread his 
handsome features as we prepared for the next 



INTO THE DESERT 99 

act. The camel gave a little wriggle in front and 
then arose suddenly in jerks from behind, depressing 
our heads and sending our feet in the air. He 
repeated this performance from the front just as 
suddenly, and, finally, we found ourselves in a more 
or less recumbent position, smiling at each other 
from our troughs across his wooden saddle. Then 
Mahomed made a strange noise in his throat, and the 
camel started off at a heaving, swaying gait that 
boded no good to any man's anatomy. This gait he 
varied from time to time as the whim took him. 
Now it was a kind of waltz punctuated with the hop 
of the polka mazurka at frequent but uncertain 
intervals. Just as you were becoming used to this, 
the beast would take it into its head to introduce 
the short, jerky, bending step of the Argentine tango 
as performed by an energetic but rather clumsy 
amateur. One began to study one's own body with 
a new interest and some solicitude. The pitching 
motion gave you grave concern about your luncheon 
on the one hand, and your lumbar region on the 
other. Especially was this the case if you sat up. 
In a semi-reclining position, you were in danger of 
rubbing the skin off certain other parts of your 
anatomy. Half a mile of experiment in every con- 
ceivable attitude led to the conclusion that one 
could reduce bumping and abrasion to a bearable 
but still unsatisfactory minimum by lying supine 
on the bottom of the trough. But, at times when 
the troughs gave indication of slipping right round 
the animal, we could not resist the temptation to sit 



ioo LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

up again. Then we would note Mahomed's grinning 
countenance down below — a very long way down 
it seemed— and listen to his " quaise keteer " (it is 
very good) with mixed feelings of incredulity and 
contempt. However, in due time, by the grace 
of the Prophet and the good guidance of Mahomed 
Ishtak, the camel got us there. We walked 
back ! 



In war in the Near East the water problem 
is difficult to solve. Having trudged back through 
the heavy sand, we found that night had come 
upon us with tropic suddenness. We had the 
luck to get back to the Canal in a motor-car. 
There were seven in it, with seats for four, and the 
road was rough, but the springs held. At the Canal 
we found a patrol boat awaiting our arrival, and soon 
we set gaily off upon the final stage of our journey. 
It came very near to being the last journey for one 
of us, for, in the darkness, and not hearing his 
challenge, we were fired upon by a sentry. We saw 
the flash and heard the crack of the rifle. The 
bullet whistled between us and splashed in the 
water just over the side of the boat. The launch 
was stopped and the skipper shouted back, " Patrol, 
patrol," in a voice loud enough to wake the dead. 
Late in the day, with a glorious moon now risen, we 
crossed Lake Timsah. Another ride in a car 
along a smooth road between an avenue of lubeck 
trees brought us to our camp after having tried 



INTO THE DESERT 101 

almost every available means of locomotion except 
an aeroplane. We had seen the new front and were 
well content. The Canal was no longer protecting 
the Army : the Army was protecting the Canal. 



THE BLOODING OF THE 
BATTALION 

THEY were the first of a new brigade that had 
recruited voluntarily in far-away New Zea- 
land. In their own country they had been well 
trained. In Egypt they had settled down to more 
training, and to await the second half of the brigade, 
but in war it is the unexpected that invariably hap- 
pens, and the First Battalion was suddenly rushed 
off to the frontier, where the Senusi, urged on by the 
Germans and the Turks, had been making trouble. 
The Christmas Day that they thought to enjoy 
quietly in Cairo was spent miles away in the desert 
attacking and routing the hostile Arab force. With 
them were the 15th Sikhs, some of the recently 
arrived Australian Light Horse, and English Yeo- 
manry — the two latter mounted. 

Mersa Matruh, near where the little army fought, 
is a little port on the north-western frontier of Egypt. 
There, at the end of November, our smaller frontier 
posts at Solium and Sidi Barni had been concen- 
trated in order to avoid possible causes of friction 
with the tribes. It lies in an arid zone, with desert 

103 



104 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

sands and barren rocky hills beyond. Near the 
shore the water is brackish ; inland there are fresh- 
water wells. The Senusi and the neighbouring 
tribesmen had been stirred up to open rebellion 
by the arch-conspirators of Europe, whose wonderful 
organization, conjoined with a well-lined purse, 
reached even into distant Persia and the desert 
lands of Mesopotamia and Africa. Early in Decem- 
ber a reconnoitring force from Matruh came upon a 
band of 300 Arabs, who were attacked and driven 
westward. Of these thirty-five were killed and seven 
taken prisoners. The British casualties were sixteen 
killed and three officers and fifteen men wounded. 

The New Zealanders reached Matruh in trawlers 
and sweepers, which set out from Alexandria. 
Arrived at their destination they found permanent 
barracks occupied by an Egyptian garrison. Their 
first days were spent in fatigues and in making 
entrenchments on the hill overlooking the station. 
Wire entanglements were erected, and the position 
generally was strengthened. The camp was close 
to the beach. Drinking water had to be brought 
from Alexandria. Each night a few shots were 
fired at our outposts by the tribesmen, who used 
to creep up under cover of the darkness, and one or 
two of our men were hit. The main body of the 
Arab force was encamped in a rocky donga some 
seven miles away to the southward. 

On Christmas Day it was decided to attack the 
position. The attacking force, consisting of the 
Sikhs and the New Zealanders, left camp at 4 a.m. 



THE BLOODING OF THE BATTALION 105 

and marched for seven miles along a rough road 
towards the place where the enemy had been spotted 
by one of our aeroplanes. The guns on the sweepers 
opened fire, and a mountain battery on shore was 
also in action. The first shell from the sea hit the 
top of the hill, and the second went just over it, 
where the enemy were congregated amongst the 
rocks and caves. The enemy replied with a field 
piece firing common shell. Three shells landed on 
the left of the road, about a hundred yards from the 
New Zealanders. 

Shortly after dawn the Sikhs advanced with 
splendid dash and fought with great bravery, a 
New Zealand company reinforcing them. This 
advance was the signal for a shower of bullets from 
the Arab snipers, none of whom could be seen. 
Another section of the New Zealanders was sent 
to take the donga, where the enemy, with his camels, 
was supposed to be. They advanced quietly in 
extended order to within 600 or 700 yards of the 
position, and opened a heavy fire. The enemy 
from hidden positions replied, and bullets were 
flying about, but were doing little damage. Our 
force then advanced to within 400 yards of the 
enemy. From this position they could see numbers 
of them sheltering behind rocks and in caves across 
the donga, and the order was given to charge down 
and across it. Led by their officers, the men 
went at it with dash and enthusiasm. At the 
bottom of the donga the little force became bunched 
up somewhat, and there was a regular fusillade of 



io6 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

enemy bullets. In places the side of the donga was 
steep, and occasionally the men let themselves go 
and slid down fifty feet at a stretch. In this manner 
they got within 200 yards of the concealed enemy, 
and the real fighting began. The Sikhs continued 
to fight with dash and courage, standing up boldly 
in the open and firing. They seemed to disdain 
cover, and their somewhat reckless daring won the 
admiration of every New Zealander. 

Both Sikhs and New Zealanders now began to fall. 
A lance-corporal fell wounded, and near him a 
sergeant-major was shot through the head and 
killed instantly. One man fell wounded in the arm 
and the chest, and a corporal who went to his assist- 
ance was shot through the body while undoing his 
tunic, and died at once. 

Finally, the British force advanced and drove 
the enemy out of their position at the point of the 
bayonet, chasing them away behind the wells. We 
captured several prisoners and camels. A number 
of women and children were discovered hiding in 
the caves. The Arabs had cut the throats of some 
of their wounded camels that they could not get 
away. Our men counted over 200 dead of the 
enemy ; and our total casualties in killed and 
wounded, including the Indians, was only some 
sixty or seventy. 

The section of the Australian Light Horse and 
some of the English Yeomanry made a sweeping 
movement on the left flank. They lost a few 
men, and four of the officers were wounded. They 



THE BLOODING OF THE BATTALION 107 

killed several Senusi. With darkness, the enemy 
having been driven off, the attack ceased, and our 
men and the Indians marched back to camp singing. 
The New Zealanders had had a " Merry Christmas," 
and they thoroughly enjoyed it. A wounded non- 
com, said, " It was a holiday," with the emphasis on 
the " was." " As they marched back in the night- 
time singing," he added, " you could not have 
wished for a happier crowd." 

And ] thus it was that the new battalion fought 
its first fight. They have travelled far and fought 
in other fields since then ; but those who survive will 
always look back with interest to that Christmas Day 
and the Blooding of the Battalion on the North- 
western Frontier. 



ST. PAUL'S AND THE ABBEY 

August 4, 1915. 

TWELVE thousand miles away, in New Zealand, 
there is a slate-roofed, ivy-covered college 
chapel, where, almost a year ago, every seat in 
chancel and nave was occupied by pupils past or 
present. The masters in hood and surplice, the 
choir-boys in their black cassocks, filled the back 
benches, and in front privates and officers sang for 
the last time the end-of-term hymn and listened 
to the farewell sermon. These men were, on the 
eve of departure, volunteers going without question 
to succour a land that most of them had never seen. 

Then the scattering of all shadows, 
And the end of toil and gloom. 

The notes echoed in the chapel rafters, and from 
the lectern the hopeful words of the Benediction 
fell on the bended heads of the men. 

Not a year has elapsed, and many of those present 
that evening are lying in nameless graves among the 
dwarf oaks of Gallipoli. Yesterday, one of those 
who had passed through the Valley of the Shadow 
heard the words of the same hymn sung beneath 

108 



ST. PAUL'S AND THE ABBEY 109 

the dome of England's greatest Cathedral. They 
awakened sad memories, but soon the majesty of 
the scene and service, almost oppressive in cere- 
monial grandeur, filled mind and eye. Personal 
loss and pain both were forgotten, and, in their 
place, came a sense of immeasurable pride and 
thankfulness, pride in being a citizen of so great an 
Empire, thankfulness for the steadfast courage of 
England in her dark days. 

To many of these men from overseas the magnifi- 
cence and solemnity of the ceremony was over- 
whelming. To them all the pageantry and panoply 
that pass almost unnoticed in a great Imperial city 
were strange. The intensity of their patriotism, 
the fervour of their loyalty, had been fostered by no 
such outward show. So it was that the splendour 
of the grand old church, the pealing organ, the 
angel-voices that soared to the misty roof, the 
gathering of the greatest in the Empire, formed 
never-to-be-forgotten impressions that will be 
handed down as heirlooms. Ignorant of Monarchy, 
the New Zealander looked almost reverently on the 
khaki-clad figure of him for whom he had fought, 
well content with the quiet dignity that gives such 
confidence. 

The National Anthem, which now means so much 
more than it did a year ago, was sung with thrilling 
fervour, and its passionate patriotism and loyalty 
must have in some measure compensated for the 
anxieties and responsibilities that beset a throne. 

Midway through the service, as the Archbishop's 



no LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

fervent prayer arose, a ray of sunlight flooded the 
gloom, striking into sudden brightness the ring on 
his lifted hand. A whisper of good omen was heard 
as the shadows fled before the sunbeams. God grant 
that it may be so, and that before long Prince and 
people may again meet in thanksgiving for a peace 
which, when we had it, we did not value. Never 
have the ties of Empire been so close. They are 
cemented with the life-blood of the Colonies, and 
the King rules over an undivided dominion — God 
save the King ! 

April 25, 1916. 

When the weary Crusaders came back from the 
parched plains of Syria to lay aside for a while their 
dented shields they rode in grand array. Lances 
twinkled in the sun, pennons snapped in the breeze, 
and the esquires riding behind their mailed lords 
kept eyes aslant to the flag-bedecked scaffolding 
where a white hand sometimes showed favour. On 
knight's surtout and steed's caparison the Red 
Cross proclaimed the right, and keen blades and 
sharp lances vouched fully for the might. 

To-day 'Londoners saw such another pageant, 
but a sadder and more sombre, in which the note of 
triumph was not so dominant. And yet the Tem- 
plars of old were not inspired with any finer spirit 
than the knights of this latter-day crusade. Both 
had upheld the Cross against the Crescent. 

They came 12,000 miles to fight their battle. 
Farmer, clerk, student, and labourer heard the 
Imperial call, and heard it perhaps more clearly 



ST. PAUL'S AND THE ABBEY in 

than their kin " at home." Some made their 
sacrifice at the landing, and they have slept for a 
year heedless of the strife around them. Others 
with better fortune strove through the long months 
that followed. 

And yesterday they marched proudly through 
the very streets that centuries ago rang to the 
acclamations of the populace welcoming back the 
old Crusaders. In the faces of those that watched 
them pass they saw a reward for all their sacrifices. 

There was a sadder procession still. One that 
made its way more slowly to the Abbey. Here a 
man with empty sleeve helped a limping comrade 
to his seat. There one pair of eyes did duty for 
two. These were they who were unable to march 
with the others, for their wounds were not yet 
healed. Some of them were but wrecks of the 
strong men who left their homes in October two 
years ago, but all were cheerful in the sense of work 
well done. 

A year ago the first of these men landed on the 
shore of Gallipoli. It was a fair day, and the blue 
waters of the iEgean showed scarcely a ripple. 
They landed with battalions 1,000 strong. Death, 
wounds, and disease took heavy toll as the long 
days dragged past, and many a man laid his best 
friend to rest among the stunted oaks, laboriously 
carving a cross to mark the sad mound. 

Hell Spit, Shrapnel Gully, Quinn's and Courte- 
nay's, all have become memories, but memories that 
haunt waking hours and hours of sleep alike, 



ii2 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

memories seared in the brain. To-day in the 
Abbey these wraiths came back to us, and for a 
short time our dead lived again. Comrades of the 
trench and sap passed noiselessly through the aisles 
gazing wistfully at the kneeling soldiers. 

Heads were bowed beneath the frayed banners 
of ancient fields, and the strong voice of the prea- 
cher echoed through the fane, and echoing found 
response in the hearts of the worshippers. Kneeling 
with them and with them in heart and thought 
was their King, whose call summoned these men 
across the world, and at whose bidding will come 
many others until the great fight is won. 

Many a pageant has the Abbey seen, but never 
before have three thousand men from the outskirts 
of Empire worshipped with their King in its storied 
pile. The service had a climax almost oppressive 
in its sadness. The Australians and New Zealanders 
turned their eyes towards the altar as the notes 
of the National Anthem echoed through the Abbey. 
They saw there the simple khaki-clad figure of the 
only man in our Empire who does not stand when 
the Anthem is sung. And they wondered what he 
thought. Surely he saw as they did that every 
man in whose company he worshipped would again be 
willing to lay down his life to uphold his sovereignty. 

The service closed with a quiet almost uncanny, 
and then the silver-throated trumpets rang out the 
soldier's saddest notes, the Last Post. I do not 
know who wrote that call, but, whoever it was, 
he put into it all the pathos, all the hope of resurrec- 



ST. PAUL'S AND THE ABBEY 113 

tion, and all the triumph that man knows. It 
ended, and for a while longer there was silence. 

Three thousand men trooped out of the Abbey, 
but even in so short a time had a change been 
wrought. Not a man but knew, as he stepped into 
the warm sunlight again, that he fought for the 
right. On us all in that half -hour had fallen the 
mantle of our fathers, whosoe'er they were — baron, 
priest, or serf. We have inherited this fair land. 
And for such a heritage will we gladly give our all. 



OAK-APPLE DAY 

YESTERDAY the statue of King Charles at 
Chelsea Royal Hospital looked out of a 
bower of greenery at a scene that would have 
surprised the amiable original of Gibbons 's handi- 
work if he had been alive. 

It was Oak-apple Day, and, as has been the custom 
for many years past, the effigy of the Royal founder 
was swathed in oak branches in memory of the 
occasion on which Charles is supposed to have 
hid in one of the few hundred oaks in England 
to which the legend attaches. To the pensioners 
the day is marked by the fact that the Guards 
Band plays them past the statue, and there is a 
large plum pudding given to each inmate. Even 
these old men have felt the war, and whereas in 
former times they were wont to get four puddings 
a year, they now get only two. 

The day was a glorious one, and even the oldest 
and most rheumy warrior was able to come out to 
sit in the sunshine and hear the old tunes to which 
he had once marched. Every man there looked 
happy, but to me it was the saddest place in the 
world. These old men marched past the Governor, 

114 



OAK-APPLE DAY 115 

General Sir Neville Lyttelton, and slowly filed by 
the statue of the Merry Monarch. If Charles had 
been looking out from the branches instead of his 
mere presentiment in metal he would have seen 
the pathos of the scene. There was one fact above 
all others that made the sight a sad one and it was 
this. These old soldiers did not march past to 
the jaunty quick-step of their more active days, for 
old limbs and stiffening joints do not permit of un- 
due hurry. They have reached the stage when they 
do not hurry even for parade, and the slow time 
of a waltz is sufficiently fast for their needs. It was 
to a waltz that they marched past ! And then 
when they had been inspected by the Governor they 
gave three cheers for King Charles, their benefactor. 
They were not the proverbial ringing cheers of the 
British soldier. After sixty years and more the 
vocal chords do not respond so readily to the call 
for three cheers, and more than one pensioner found 
that he was left coughing after the effort. 

There was an interesting group sitting in one 
corner of the centre quadrangle and the conversation 
was as interesting as the men who were talking. 
There were four soldiers there and all were veterans, 
but there was forty years between their ages and 
their campaigns. Two of them had got their 
honourable wounds in the Crimea and the other 
two at Gallipoli. The two old heads under the 
tricorne caps wagged wisely as tales of Anzac were 
unfolded. The pensioners knew the Turk, and they 
agreed with the men who had seen him " at home " 



n6 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

forty years later in saying that he fought fair. 
Tales of the bitter Black Sea winter found their 
exact parallel when one of the New Zealanders 
told of the terrible storm that raged over Anzac 
and all the iEgean. But for the fact that it was a 
young voice that was speaking one would never 
have known that it was not still the pensioner 
narrating his experiences of the winter of 1855. 
It was a wonderful little group, symbolical of all 
that Empire stands for, and when the old men rose 
to go indoors and the young one-armed soldier from 
the Antipodes helped them up the steps to the clois- 
ters the symbolism was carried further still. The 
colouring alone would have justified the attention 
of a painter. The young men, in their blue hospital 
kit, the old men in scarlet, the faces of the Anzacs 
bronzed by exposure to the winds and sun of the 
Gallipoli Peninsula, and the pallor of old age of the 
Crimean veterans, all made such a contrast as 
Herkomer would have delighted to paint. In the 
chapel two more New Zealanders were being shown 
the banners that were carried before some of the 
finest troops the world has ever known. They 
looked at them reverently, for they knew — none 
better — all the suffering that they stood for. The 
old man thought of comrades left in shallow graves 
when the ground was too hard with frost to dig 
deep, and the younger men recalled the still forms 
that were put overside from the hospital ships in 
the iEgean, or buried in their blankets in Shrapnel 
Gully. 



OAK-APPLE DAY 117 

The band outside in the sunshine changed its 
refrain, and a rattling of side-drums heralded in the 
best of all marching tunes, " The British Grena- 
diers," and the pensioner sighed softly as he thought 
of the time when he had been called from his regi- 
ment by the Commander-in-Chief and publicly 
decorated for an act of valour that had won him 
the most coveted honour that a soldier may win. 
The march stopped with the same rolling of drums 
with which it began, and then, as the strains of the 
National Anthem followed, the trio in the chapel 
stiffened to attention. Again it was symbolical. 
Here was one of England's oldest warriors, and beside 
him two of her youngest. No one has painted the 
picture, but let us hope that it will last for all time 
and that the call will always be answered from 
overseas. As the younger men stood beside the old 
soldier, who had long ago laid away his sabre, so 
will the young Dominions stand beside the land that 
gave them birth. 



THE MAN WITH THE FEARLESS 
EYES 

MY sister, Lady Beverly Brooke, has a new 
hobby. She has just given up Buddhism. 
The coffee-coloured high priest who held seances 
and hands in her drawing-room became acquisitive 
and forgot that the tenets of his religion only bade 
him acquire merit. He acquired some of her best 
old silver, and when he was found leaving the house 
with a cloisonne vase beneath his ample robes she 
decided that Buddhism did not quite supply the 
meditative influence that she desired. Her new 
recreation is taking out wounded colonial soldiers. 
She visits the various hospitals and insists that 
she shall be allowed to take out the wildest and 
wooliest men from the back-blocks that happen 
to be in at the moment. 

I went with her on Saturday last. We saw the 
matron at the first hospital we called at, and she 
was sorry, but there were only tame and sophisti- 
cated men in her wards, so we went elsewhere. At 
last we found a place where there was a man who 
had never been loose m London except on his way 

118 



THE MAN WITH THE FEARLESS EYES 119 

from Victoria in a motor ambulance. It seemed 
too good to be true and my sister was sceptical. 
" Are you sure that he is just what I want and really 
new to towns ? " she asked. " I want one of those 
fine rugged men who have lived close to nature 
all their lives and are unspoiled by the contamina- 
tion of modern society. I want to take him round 
London and listen to his appreciation of all its 
wonders." The matron assured her that the man 
was just like that and went to bring him down. 
She went down the corridor, and presently we saw 
her talking to a man in uniform. " That is the 
man," said Evelyn excitedly. " Look at his wea- 
ther-tanned face and his easy walk. That comes 
from tramping the open spaces. Isn't he wonder- 
ful ? " Then the matron came back to tell us that 
the man would be down in a minute. " How splen- 
did he looks ! " said Evelyn enthusiastically. 
" Who ? " asked the matron. " Why, that great 
strong colonial boy," said Evelyn. " That's not a 
colonial," said the matron, " that's Mr. Smith, 
of Harley Street, the great aurist. He comes here 
twice a week." Then Evelyn started to talk 
rapidly of the flower show and the last Zeppelin 
raid. Presently our man did come downstairs. 
I must say I was disappointed, but Evelyn was 
quite satisfied. As he was getting his pass she 
whispered to me to notice his fearless blue eye. 
This she also attributed to living in the open spaces. 
She also drew attention to his firm mouth, which 
she said was formed as the result of dealing with 



120 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

nature's moods, probably with the arduous diffi- 
culties of the trail to the gold mines, and the strenu- 
ous and thrilling work of the round up of the cattle 
on the great prairies. 

We took him to Kensington Gardens first. He 
was shy and did not talk very much. Presently he 
asked if he could smoke and Evelyn had the chance 
she had been waiting for. She presented him with 
a twist of the darkest tobacco I have ever seen and 
a new corn cob pipe ! He seemed a little taken 
aback, but she would not be gainsaid. " I know 
you men from the ranches smoke this sort of to- 
bacco/ ' she said, " and you would not look at all 
at home with an ordinary pipe." He took the pipe 
and filled it and for a time he smoked in silence. 
" I do wish he would spit," whispered Evelyn to me, 
"I am sure he wants to." If he did he was too 
polite to do it and she was disappointed. Presently 
we came to the statue of Peter Pan. " That," said 
Evelyn, " is Barrie's Peter Pan." Then the big 
New Zealander spoke. " I didn't know Barry had 
any kids," he said, " but he's a fine sculler. Saw 
him row against Arnst on the Wanganui once." 

Evelyn was evidently at a loss, so I explained 
matters. " It's not the Barrie who rows," I said. 
" It's the novelist." " Oh ! " said the New Zea- 
lander. 

We went past the Round Pond and along a 
shaded walk. Presently I saw the New Zealander, 
who had got slightly ahead, crouched close to the 
ground, every muscle tense, like a leopard about to 



THE MAN WITH THE FEARLESS EYES 121 

spring. I thought he was ill and ran to him. 
" Shim," he whispered. " Keep quiet. Can't you 
see it ? " I said I could see nothing out of the or- 
dinary. " It's a rabbit," he hissed. Then he 
crawled nearer and I picked out a very surprised 
bunny peering through the bushes at us. Such 
things were new to the sophisticated park rabbit 
and with two blase hops he dived into a burrow. 
" Run and get the boss," said the man, now more 
excited than ever, " I've got his burrow marked 
down." " There is no boss here," I said placatingly. 
" Then get the man who owns this place," he said 
" The King owns it," I explained. At last I per- 
suaded him to get up, but he was still far from 
happy. " Hasn't he got a rabbiter ? " he asked. 
" Doesn't he know there are rabbits in this pad- 
dock?" "Isn't he too delicious," cooed Evelyn, 
" and so colonial. Just fancy a Rabbiter-in- 
Ordinary to the King. Who could we give the 
position to ? It would be just like another Chan- 
cellorate of the Duchy." 

By this time I was near a state of collapse, but 
Evelyn was as a ticket office man who has been 
given half a sovereign for a sixpence and about 
as willing to give up her find. He calmed down a 
bit, but when we got to the Row he surveyed a 
squadron of women in the latest divided skirts with 
great wonder. " Where's the circus ? " he said 
seriously and in a loud aside as one lady in neat 
riding breeches walked her horse past close to the 
railings. Near Albert Gate we met Lady Broke 



122 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

with the Duchesse de Cri Nisi. Of course Evelyn 
took her Tommy up to show him off. He chummed 
up directly with Lady Broke. " Do you know the 
King ? " he asked. " Well, I have met him," she 
said mystified. " Well," he said, " you tell him 
from me that he has rabbits in that big paddock 
back there." 

We got him away at last, but not before Angela 
Broke had been made to promise that she would 
write the King a note or " Perhaps call round on 
Sunday and tell him he had rabbits." 

All this was six days ago. Last night I went 
to Betty Holloway's to a small dance. It was 
very hot and rather crowded, so I sat down in the 
smoking-room and amused myself watching the 
dancing through the open door. Opposite me was 
a youth of elegant appearance. He was large and 
handsome, with a tanned face and blue eyes. His 
dress suit was faultless and looked like one of those 
garments that never seem to appear except on 
tailors' advertisements. Languidly he poured him- 
self a whisky and soda, fitted a cigarette to a six- 
inch amber tube, and then winked solemnly at me. 
" Did Lady Broke give my message to the King 
about the rabbits ? " he asked. Then I remem- 
bered him. " But," I gasped, " you aren't, you 
can't be, it's too absurd." " Don't you wish I 
would spit ? " he said in a stage whisper. As he 
went off to join his next partner he stopped for a 
moment. " I am sorry," he said, " but I couldn't 
resist it. We had a great afternoon, didn't we ? " 



THE MAN WITH THE FEARLESS EYES 123 

Then I sought out Betty. " Who is that young 
New Zealander ? " I asked. "Oh he's not really 
a New Zealander at all," she said ; " he just happened 
to be in New Zealand when war broke out. He was 
deer stalking with his uncle, dear Lord Bowinda, and 
he joined up as a private.' ' 

" Can I use your telephone ? " I asked. 

" Is anything wrong." 

" Oh no," I reassured her, " I've some news for 
Evelyn." 



LONDON GHOSTS 

AS the devout Arab goes to Mecca, so have I 
come to London. I have come to pay 
homage to a city and to the ghosts of the past that 
people it. Far off, on the underneath part of the 
globe, I dreamed of London, and my dreams were 
queer ones. My picture was a conglomerate of 
Dickens and Pepys, of the Spectator and the Tatler. 
Added to this was the stalwart figure of a London 
policeman. In the background a Phil May coster 
girl's ostrich feathers waved coquettishly. 

And now I have seen London, and I have spent 
months in the vain attempt to sort out and pigeon- 
hole impressions that crowd each other so close that 
they serve me little better than my far-away 
conception gleaned from Pepys and Dickens. 

I came to London on a dull day, with the spires 
and domes showing up uncertainly through the soft 
rain. I passed through Whitehall and Westminster, 
and I looked out at the sooted, grimy Palace and the 
great Abbey, feeling that somehow none of it was 
new to me. Later I visited these places again, and 
my first thoughts were confirmed for me. You here 

124 



LONDON GHOSTS 125 

in England do not know all the world of meaning in 
the word heredity. It seems to you almost incon- 
ceivable that a man can come from a small Oversea 
Dominion to this great city and fit automatically into 
the places his forefathers filled. But it is so. 

I had thought to see St. Paul's great pile gleaming 
in the sun in all the splendour of white stonework 
and masonry. Instead I saw it through a mist, and 
it was befouled and sooted and grimed from smoke 
and fogs. Then I knew that therein lay its beauty. 
Wren had no hand in all this. One doubts whether 
he foresaw it, but in those great stone columns and 
massive cornices the dirt and smoke of centuries have 
worked a miracle of light and shade. Reliefs are 
made to stand out amazingly, the great flat walls 
are softened and marbled in greys and blacks. In 
places, in striking contrast, the rain has washed the 
stones and kept them white. 

If you live in a country that to the white man is 
but fifty years old, and then come suddenly to a city 
where you find the dust of ages, it oppresses you. It 
seems wonderful to think that you can touch an 
altar rail that was set in the stone floor six centuries 
ago ; that you can kneel at a shrine where the 
Templars prayed ; can walk on a terrace where 
Raleigh smoked tobacco from his own Virginia. I 
have seen the tombs of the Kings at Thebes, the 
great pyramids of Gizeh, the mosque of Sultan 
Hassan — all these go back to ages in which London 
was perhaps unthought of. And that is precisely 



126 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

where they lose all their impressiveness. So old are 
they that one cannot people them with the men and 
women who lived at their building. Here it is 
different. It is not a great Abbey that you marvel 
at. It is the thought that you can re-people it in any 
age to suit yourself. Here are fretted archways, 
flying buttresses, lofty spires, all of them things of 
beauty in themselves, but think of them in the 
making ! Think of the raw stone for the arch under 
the chisel of the carver, and the spire still masked in 
scaffolding to which figures in mediaeval costume 
carry these carven blocks to set them in their places. 
Think of Westminster with its tonsured monks and 
its gowned novices. Think of that high window in 
Whitehall on that day when a King stepped from it 
to the scaffold above the silent, awed crowds. Always 
it is the same. In Holyrood, in Edinburgh, a little 
wainscoted room would have no meaning to the man 
who did not know the story of Rizzio. When that 
is told the past returns. It is the same in London. 
What matters if you watch the twopences ticking up 
on a taxi clock as you go to the Tower ? When you 
uncover as you enter St. John's Chapel all that is 
blotted out by the mist of years, and you see in the 
half-light the kneeling figure of the Conqueror, in 
mail and white surtout, praying for this realm. And 
the accents of others in the Chapel seem to be the 
voices of the Norman priests droning their credos 
and their paters. Almost one smells the incense 
from swinging censers. 

The sound of mellow bells steals through the 



LONDON GHOSTS 127 

narrow windows, and outside you hear the footsteps 
of armed men, the stamp of caparisoned war-horses 
as the Conqueror's knights gather to offer thanks for 
past victory or pray for the success of fresh ventures. 
What does it matter that the benches are unoc- 
cupied and the altar is bare of vessels of silver and 
gold ? In the still hours of the night all these 
ghosts return, and there is the slow chant of voices, 
the splash of holy water as the stone stoop is filled, 
the rustle of the vellum leaves of the ponderous 
missals, the tinkle of coins into the. alms boxes. 

This is London, a city of ghosts that will stay for 
all time. 



MEN OF THE GLEN 

THERE is a kindly wind blowing from over the 
loch. It comes stealing down from the 
slopes of Ben Donich, ruffles the still water in frosted 
patches, and creeps through the castle policies, 
telling the great oaks something that keeps them 
whispering all the morn. The little town seems 
sleeping. The plash of the brown waters over the 
weir beneath the castle bridge fills the ears. A heron 
stands motionless in the shallow water, surfeited 
with the full meal he has just finished. Then from 
the direction of the town there comes the sound of a 
drum. If we draw nearer we will see why it is that 
the loch-side is deserted. In the church square some 
200 kilted lads are saying a farewell to their sisters 
and mothers and other peoples' sisters and mothers, 
for they are marching to the wars, as their forefathers 
have done before them from time immemorial. 

This little hamlet has sent men to every war that 
Britain has engaged in, and no matter how far back 
you go, every onfall, siege, leaguer, every brawl 
between nations has seen Mac-Cailein Mor's men 
well in the forefront of battle. And so it is that 

128 



MEN OF THE GLEN 129 

these men have left the loch-side and the brae, have 
left the fishing boat on the beach, and the sheep 
without a shepherd. 

The last good-byes are being said, and a girl with 
eyes as blue as the waters of the loch on a summer's 
day, calls to her brother, a tall piper. " See and no 
forget to pipe to they Germans," she says, " and 
look after Sandy for me. I'm feared he'll be led 
away by yon French lassies." A corporal answers 
her, " I'll look after mysei' fine," and he kisses the 
girl and rejoins his ranks. 

The officer in charge of the company gives a 
warning, and the men hoist their web slings over 
their shoulders. The pipers form up in front of the 
column, and as they move off they toss the drone 
and the stocs of the pipes on to the hollow of their 
shoulders. There is a chorus of farewells broken 
into by the wheeze of the filling bags and the buzz of 
the great drones. The drum beats on the setting 
down of each left foot, and away they go with cap 
ribbons fluttering in the breeze, sporrans a-swing to 
the step. The drum rolls and the glen is wakened 
as it has been many times in the past with the lilt of 
one of the finest marches that ever burst from the 
chanter, " Baile Ionaraora " it is, better known to 
you as " The Campbells are Coming." Round the 
town front and past the old inn and the great stone- 
arched gates, to the castle walls where the pipers 
change their tune to the salute, " Failte 'Mharcuis." 
By the burying ground they step out to the march 
once more, and until they are over the humpbacked 

K 



130 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

bridge the tune continues. It stops with a sad little 
gasp as the bags deflate and are tucked under each 
oxter with the stoc ribbons to the fore, fluttering 
their dark blue, yellow-striped tartan ribbons. 

Suddenly a man in the front four breaks into song. 
His clear voice echoes back to the listening women 
by the inn : — 

The Rover o' Lochryan, he's gane 

Wi' his merry men sae brave ; 

Their hearts are o' steel, an' a better keel 

Ne'er bowl'd owre the back o' a wave. 

It's no when the loch lies dead in its trough, 

When naething disturbs it ava, 

But the rack and the ride o' the restless tide, 

An' the splash o' the grey sea-maw. 

Under the shadow of the hill the wind steals the 
song and carries it away and up the glen, but as the 
road crosses a tongue that juts into the lake it is 
still borne faintly down to the listening women. 

We dash through the drift and sing to the lift 
O' the wave that heaves us on. 

From the crags under the beacon it is repeated 
wistfully, " The wave that heaves us on." The 
light goes and the lamps are lit in the cottages along 
the front. The tall girl who was anxious about 
Sandy is the last to leave. She shades her eyes 
with her hand and looks again, listening the while, 
and down the winding waters, " the trough o' the 
loch," there comes the ghost of a melody. But the 
wind is fickle and it stays but a moment. The girl 



MEN OF THE GLEN 131 

turns and goes into a cottage near at hand. " You'll 
no* be wantin' the light yet a while, mither," she 
says, and the old woman agrees. 

The seasons have changed the leaves in the glen 
as the yellow St. John's wort changes the wool for 
the tartan of the Lachlans. There are no young 
men left in the town. There are but old men and 
women and the sturdy youngsters fretting that they 
might too be allowed to go to the wars. The blue- 
eyed girl waits on the jetty for a steamer that is as 
yet ten miles down the loch. She knows this, but 
she must wait here. At last a puff of smoke heralds 
the approach of the little boat that soon afterwards 
creeps round the promontory. As it ties up at the 
jetty the girl sees two kilted figures on the deck. 
She sees them through a mist of tears, for one man, 
her brother, has an empty sleeve. And yet he is 
the luckier of the two, for he helps the other man to 
the gangway, putting his hands on the side rails. 
" Twa steps, Sandy," he warns him, but the blind 
man is safe at last, and softer hands have helped 
him on to the quay. 

" I didna' see much o' they French lassies, Alison," 
says he bravely, " for it was dark when they took 
us through to the front, and when I came back it was 
dark, too, leastways it was for me." " Oh, Sandy, 
Sandy," cries the girl, and Sandy knows that the 
splash of wet on his hand is not from the rain that 
has been threatening for the last hour. So these 
three go up the little street to the cottage where a 



132 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

very old lady meets them. " Come ben the hoose, 
and we'll just have prayers," is all she says when she 
has stepped from the one-armed embrace of her son. 
And the four of them kneel and offer thanks. 

Put the scene back a hundred years to the " Forty- 
five " or back further still, and there is nothing new 
in it. Think it out for yourself, and ask what it is 
that brings these men of the heather and the glen to 
fight for England. They have been treated as 
outlaws, hunted and slain. Their dress and their 
music were forbidden them, their very language was 
proscribed so that it was a crime to speak it. And 
yet — and yet the music of the piob-mhor echoes 
over the fields of Flanders and the deserts of Egypt, 
through the ruined colonnades of Grecian temples, 
and is even heard in the African jungle. 



THE HOME OF MY FATHERS 

THERE comes a stage in convalescence when a 
man gets wilful and can stay still no longer. 
And so, not heeding the doctor, I set off for Scotland 
and found myself in due course at the little village 
of Tarbet that fronts Ben Lomond on the other side 
of the loch. 

There I found great pleasure in the stern hills and 
the curving beaches, but I wanted something more. 
I had come from the Antipodes to the home of my 
fathers, and I wanted to find out for myself what it 
was in this place that always tugs at the heart strings 
of the Scot be he never so far away. Apart from 
reading, all I knew of Scotland I had learnt from 
my grandfather, a Scot of Scots, who only spoke 
English because the Sassenachs amongst whom he 
had settled did not understand the tongue of the 
Highlands. 

Something of this I told to a chance acquaintance, 
and he prescribed, " Walk from here to Loch Long 
and over the Pass of Glencroe to Inveraray. Take 
your time and avoid the trains. They spoil the 
Highlands." " I will," I said, and I did. 

133 



134 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

I left Loch Lomond behind me and walked at my 
ease over the brae to Arrochar and so round the 
silver waters of Loch Long, where once the Vikings 
had sailed their ships before the fight at Largs saw 
them sent their ways. The road winds dusty white 
round the shore to the Pass of Glencroe, and up 
through the pines to the saddle of the hills at Rest 
and Be Thankful. I rose above the burn that 
became as a winding glinting thread below, until I 
overtook an old crone, bent as a wind-warped tree- 
trunk. We walked together silently to the Rest and 
sat to take breath amongst the sweet heather. The 
climb had been hard to the old dame, but she sud- 
denly asked me a question when her lungs had 
rested themselves. At least I was in two minds 
whether it was a question or a statement of fact. 
" You'll not be from these parts ? " she said abruptly. 
I told her that I came from the other side of the 
world, and that this was my first pilgrimage to this 
country. " Aye," she said, " I ken that fine, but 
your fathers were here and this is as much your 
country as it was theirs. Look down the glen there 
and tell me whether it's new to you." 



So I looked, and as I did so the purple mists of 
the early spring evening gathered and massed, and 
the strip of white that was the stream faded away 
for a while. It cleared again, and I saw that the 
road had become narrow. It was no more broad 
and white, but a rough path that skirted the great 



THE HOME OF MY FATHERS 135 

boulders and climbed short steep faces with varying 
grades. Far down below me the peat reek curled 
lazily upwards in wreaths and rings until I could 
smell its sweet savour in the clear air. At the door 
of the shieling from whence the smoke came there 
was a splash of colour, brilliant red even in the 
subdued light, and it came to me suddenly that I 
was there to watch the men who wore those red 
jackets. So I lay very close to the ground with my 
head low in the heather and my bonnet in my hand. 
From high above me there came the soft cry of the 
mating whaup, three times repeated, and I answered 
it with the same notes twice. I thought it not 
strange that as I lay I should pull my sporran from 
under me and find in it a wad of oaten bannock and 
a lump of white crowdy wrapped in a cabbage leaf. 
I munched hungrily, always with one eye lifted for 
the redcoats at the cottage door. Presently the 
red splay became a straight line which then curved 
as it wound up the hill. I gave the whaup' s cry 
again, and for answer there came a rustling of the 
heather at my side as a bearded face and a shock of 
red hair came level with my shoulder. 

I greeted the new-comer in the Gaelic, nor thought 
it strange, though I had never known the tongue, 
nor, indeed, had my father, unless one take account 
of the few words that any one would glean from mere 
listening. The red fellow gave my name in the 
Gaelic, and we talked in whispers in that speech, 
and all the time the red ribbon wound farther up the 
mountain-side until at last it ceased to be a ribbon 



136 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

at all, and we could count the ten men who toiled 
under their knapsacks, led by an officer, who walked 
alone. How hot the captain looked, although he 
carried nothing but a light sword ! I wondered at 
this, for I had come the same gait many a time, and 
never so much as a bead of sweat had come to my 
brow. Now they were below us, and I leaned out 
and over the heather tuft that I might see the better. 
As I did a stone rolled from beneath my foot and 
crashed through the stems towards the men below. 
My companion leapt like a deer and ran upwards, 
bent double to keep below the musket balls that 
whipped the branches from the twigs on either side 
of him. I saw his drab hosen and bare knees go 
flitting over the brae-top, and I bethought me that 
perhaps it were better if I ran too, for the leading 
four of the soldiers was a bare ten yards below me 
climbing fast for all their accoutrements. Picking 
up a stone I threw it with all my might, thanking 
my father the while that he had skilled me in such 
games. I saw it hurtle through the air and strike a 
man's face, which became on the instant redder 
than his coat, but without any of the shape that a 
man's face should have. Then I lifted my brogues 
and footed it up the hill-side, the wind fanning my 
face with the speed I ran at. From behind again 
came the sputter of musket shots, and I felt as 
though a hand of steel had torn the calf from my 
leg and had smote me full in the ribs. I ran on and 
ever upwards, and at last the sound of the voices 
grew fainter. Where the heather was thickest I 



THE HOME OF MY FATHERS 137 

found two great stones propped together with a 
hollow between. I pushed myself in feet first, and 
next I woke to see the wan dawnlight coming over 
the hills. I tried to pull myself from the cranny, 
but it hurt me sorely, and I stopped. 



And the mists came down in the Pass of Glencroe 
again, and there was the road broad and white, no 
longer a path. There was no smoking chimney 
below for the cottage was roofless. There were no 
redcoats either. The only thing left me was a 
stabbing pain in the side and in the leg, but I knew 
that was from a wound that I got at Gallipoli in 
April last year. 

" I have been sleeping," I said to the old woman 
who still sat by me, " and dreaming, too." " Maybe, 
maybe," she said, " but they were nae your ain 
dreams. Come you with me." 

She led me over the hill and up away from the 
road past two great stones with a hollow between 
them such as a man might hide in. We went on, 
and there on the lonely hill-side was a graveyard 
with a score of stones set all agley, with the moss so 
thick on them that it was not easy to read the letter- 
ing. She led me to one of them and rubbed the 
green from the inscription, and I found myself 
staring at my own name. I read plainly, " To the 
memory of Alexander Ross, who was shotte hardbye 
this place by soldiers of the English, but who lived 
seven months afterward, although he carried his 



138 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

wound to the grave and his hate with it. Decern : 
15, 17 — ." That was all. 

" And what might your name be, now ? " asked the 
old woman. I told her shortly, for the thing amazed 
me. " There were lots of your folk here at one time, 
although they did not properly belong to these parts. 
They buried here, and they say that yon cottage has 
had nae a roof tae it this long syne, for the soldiers 
burnt it at the time they shot this same Alexander, 
who lived there then. It may be true. I ken there 
was folk of your name hereaway when this road was 
but a wee bit path through the heather." 

And so saying she hobbled slowly down the far side 
of the hill. As for me, I sat by the old stones until 
the evening shadows fell across the hill-tops and the 
valley was hid in mist. 



" TIPIRERE " 

IN the green lanes of France you may meet at any 
time with men of different colours. There are 
black men marching there, brown men, and bronze, 
beside all the English and French soldiery. A while 
ago a long column swung along the road to the tune 
of a melody sung in time to the marching feet. The 
tune you would know, but the words would be new 
to you, or at least seem so. 

He roa te wa hi Tipirere, 

He tino mamao, 
He roa te wa ki Tipirere, 

Ki taku kotiro, 
E noho pikatiri, 

Hei kona rehita koea, 
He mamao rawa Tipirere 

Ka tae ahua. 

It is an old friend in new guise, and the last word of 
the first line will tell you that it is none other than 
" Tipperary." But what is the tongue that it is 
sung in and what of the men that sing it ? 

On the under side of the world there is a land 
where the trees never turn yellow. Where the 
summer is a fair division of the^year with a month 

139 



140 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

and a half thrown in for good measure. It is a land 
of big spaces, full, broad rivers, and turquoise lakes. 
In the south there are great mountains with their 
peaks clothed in perpetual snow and their glaciers 
moving towards the sun-bathed plains. In the 
interior there lived a race of chivalrous warriors 
who fought a great fight against British troops. 
Now New Zealand is as British as Sussex, and the 
spirit of the dark-skinned fighters who took up 
arms against the redcoats has come to France in the 
Maori contingent. 

When Britain first declared war there was an 
immediate response from the Dominions and the 
Maoris asked that they should be allowed to fight 
for their King with their " pakeha " (whitemen) 
brothers. At first there were obvious difficulties, 
and it was not for some time that the Government 
was able to accede to their request. Then there 
came a time when there was great rejoicing in the 
Maori pas, and the young men flocked to the recruit- 
ing offices, as became the sons of a righting race. It 
was disgrace to be hoeing the " kumara " beds when 
the manhood of England was needing respite from 
the battle. They would go over the sea to help the 
King and the Empire, and so they came, first to 
Gallipoli and then to France. 

They are children in spirit, and their pleasures 
have always been of their own devising. They had 
no written language, but they handed down by oral 
tradition the most complex genealogical trees and 
their own detailed and picturesque folklore. There 



" TIPIRERE " 141 

is another side to them that has been evidenced as 
the result of the civilization that we have taken 
them, but that is not the side we are interested in. 

When the war came to New Zealand it found one 
Maori boy dwelling beside the waters of Lake Taupo. 
He was happy as he could be and not overworked. 
He had been taught English by the Catholic priest 
of Waihi, and he could read the papers slowly, but 
sufficiently well to tell that here was a great adven- 
ture offered him. He sat in the "whare " one night 
reading from the cables how the Germans had 
thrown our Army back from Mons. He did not 
know where Mons was, but he knew that men were 
wanted. He asked if he could go to fight, but was 
told that it was not a war for the Maori. Then at 
last came his chance. He took his younger brother 
out to the potato paddock and gave him detailed 
instructions as to what he was to do if the kumaras 
were by any chance ready for digging before he came 
back from settling the King's affairs. He shook 
hands solemnly with his grandfather and performed 
the " hongi," rubbing his own flat nose on the 
tattoed face of the old man. He shouldered his 
bundle and walked away past the hot springs, 
through the manuka scrub with its sweet-smelling 
flowers until he struck the coach road under Maun- 
ganamu, the little pocket edition of a volcano with 
its dead crater filled with foxgloves. 

He walked to Waiouru, and then he took a train. 
In ten days he was wearing a khaki jacket and a 
helmet, and doing tedious drill on a hard-trodden 



142 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

square. Then, after the allotted space of training 
he was embarked with his fellows, all of his own 
race, and the long journey to Egypt commenced. 
Arrived at Gallipoli he got his first taste of fighting, 
and heredity came uppermost. Disregarding all that 
an impressive sergeant-major had drummed into his 
head, he forgot that a bayonet was for use at close 
quarters. He was sent with the other Maoris on a 
little piece of work that demanded much steadiness 
and the utmost quiet. They crept along the dere to 
attack the Turk. It was to be a surprise attack, and 
the rifles were not to be fired. It was a surprise, 
and Hone went into the thick of the melee with his 
rifle clubbed like the " tiaha " or the " teko-teko " 
of his forbears. It was hard work, but orders were 
obeyed, and there were at first no noises but the sound 
of hard breathing, and the thud of the rifle stocks and 
the cries of the wounded . Their ob j ect was achieved, 
and that night, under the frowning heights of Chunuk 
Bair, they sat and talked in their own tongue of the 
glories of that half-hour. 

Then they came to France, and we find them 
swinging along between the high poplars to the 
tune of " Tipperary " sung sweetly in their soft 
voices and with the perfect time that all Polynesian 
races are able to put into their music. Hone came, 
too, and here he is at the head of the column with 
two stripes on his sleeve. As he marches he wishes 
wistfully that his old grandfather and little Hori, his 
brother, could see him now and could have heard the 
cheers that greeted them in the streets of the first 



" TIPIRERE " 143 

French town they passed through. Once more he 
was in the thick of things, but this time he did not 
march back to the bivouac. A stretcher carried him 
to the waiting motor ambulance and he was hurried 
to the hospital, where a surgeon shook his head 
sadly over him. 

He lay there for two days, but his spirit was 
already half round the world to the quiet lake-side 
where the white sand is washed by waters as blue as 
the clear sky. He thought himself back at Taupo 
sitting under the shade of the manuka bushes. The 
steam from the hot pools in the ti-tree was wafted 
across the water and the boiling mud geysers chuckled 
and gurgled like goblins as he told his brother and 
the old man of how he had fought the Turk and the 
Germans. 

The nurse at the other end of the ward was sud- 
denly conscious of soft singing, and as she came along 
the passage-way between the beds she heard that 
the voice was Hone's. She, too, knew the tune, but 
the words were strange to her. He roa te waki 
Tipirere, he tino mamao, he sang. And then as the 
little boiling pools chuckled and laughed softly and 
the note of a distant bell-bird came across the arm 
of the lake from Waitahanui he closed his eyes and 
his spirit went to the place where all good warriors 
go- 



THE NEW TREK 

OUR camp was in the desert, " somewhere in 
Egypt." It was at a most interesting spot — 
troops moving about ; aeroplanes flying at great 
speed overhead; the ugly sausage-shaped balloon 
swinging leisurely in the blue ; and ships, great and 
small, passing to and fro along the Canal. Occa- 
sionally the distant cough of a howitzer, registering, 
awoke memories of Gallipoli. But there was no 
sound of any answering gun. All that was by day. 
At night it was still interesting but much quieter. 
The chuff ! chuff ! chuff ! of a pumping engine 
sending water into the tanks far out in the desert 
lulled us to sleep. Save for this chuffing monotone, 
the occasional " Halt ! who goes there ? " of a 
sentry, the answering call of " Friend," and the final 
response of " Pass friend, all's well," silence reigned 
in our camp. 

The northern constellations shone gloriously in a 
blackness that was intense, and Venus, with atten- 
dant Jupiter, dipping toward the dim Mokattam 
hills, blazed brilliantly. On other nights the great 
bright moon of the dry Egyptian skies challenged 

144 



THE NEW TREK 145 

the radiance of the evening star, and flooded the 
scene with golden light. From far up the Canal 
came the steely glare of the searchlights throwing 
the sandy undulations into high relief and turning 
some solitary soldier on the bank into silhouette. 
Those were days and nights to be remembered. 

At times, from the bigger camp across the Canal, 
came the sound of music and the roll of the drum, 
indicating that some regiment was moving off. 
Following the music of the band faint cheering 
could be heard, and the stirring strains of the 
National Anthem. These were the distant sounds 
of farewell ceremonies, for the Force now knew that 
it had done with the desert, and was to leave for 
fresh fields and new adventures, mayhap to strike 
a blow for Mother England and for France. As one 
regiment moved out, another moved in, — a kind of 
general post. Sometimes, just as dawn was coming 
up, rosy-fingered, over the rim of the desert, we 
could hear the band playing, and presently a regi- 
ment would come swinging down the dusty road. 
They had started out on the new trek — to France ! 

From now on there was a continual marching 
and counter-marching of troops. The long pontoon 
bridge that the Australian engineers had built 
across the Canal at Lake Timsah creaked and 
swayed under the tramp of marching men and 
camels and horses and the rumbling of guns and 
transport wagons. On the Ferry, with its hand 
winches and rattling chains, more men and camels 
and horses passed from shore to shore. Day after 

IV 



146 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

day the marching went on, the first of the Aus- 
tralians coming out, the New Zealanders coining in 
to the desert trenches. Then the New Zealanders — 
splendidly fit with their hard training — marched 
out. Later still came the Maoris, with their free 
swinging stride — born soldiers. Across the Canal 
it was a case of welcome the coming, speed the 
parting guest. 

Gallipoli, where our fallen lay thickly huddled in 
the little cemeteries, and along the lines of trench 
and charge, and where the still-clothed skeletons 
of our unburied dotted the slopes and hollows of 
what was No-Man's Land, was behind us for ever, 
and, though there were many sad memories, there 
were no vain regrets. The Turk, in war, had proved 
himself a gentleman, and as he was not the real 
enemy we were quite content to leave him to others. 
In fresh fields we might prove our prowess anew. 
There was an expectant eagerness amongst the 
troops as they set out, at last, to grapple with the 
real enemy — on the fields of France and Flanders ! 

A long-distance telephone message in the night- 
time was our warning, at short notice, to report for 
embarkation at Alexandria. Arrived there we 
found, at one of the many quays, a big, black- 
painted Atlantic liner already half-filled with 
troops. A thousand men were waiting, with their 
packs and rifles, ready to embark. A crowd of 
avaricious Arabs fought for the privilege of carrying 
our baggage. On board, the tired men were lying 
about the decks or searching for their billets. Every 



THE NEW TREK 147 

second man seemed to be sucking an orange, and 
the decks were strewn with the discarded peelings. 
The ship's cranes were busy with the heavier cases 
of Army Corps stationery, and the many other things 
that an Army Corps Head-quarters needs. Quietly 
and methodically the embarkation proceeded — the 
embarkation of some three thousand men — and 
towards evening a tug came alongside and pulled 
the nose of our ship round as she headed for an 
anchorage. White, lateen-sailed boats were grace- 
fully skimming about the harbour, and here and 
there a motor-launch threaded her way through 
the dance. All that night we lay at anchor, wait- 
ing, with the steady slow pulse of the pumps beating. 
The pause gave the three thousand men time to 
shake down. Perhaps it also enabled us to get 
through a danger zone under cover of the next 
night. 

In the smoking-room old " Anzacs " met and 
talked of other days. There were many here who 
had been in the thick of it. The men chatted in 
groups and whistled and sang " Australia Will be 
There." In the evening the General came on board. 
After dinner the officers settled down to books and 
magazines, and a quartet, forgetting war for the 
moment, to a quiet rubber of Bridge. 

Next morning there was more stir on board — the 
sound of bugles blown, commands from non-coms 
and orders from ship's officers breaking in upon the 
hum of conversation that arose from thousands of 
talkative soldiers. The harbour was crowded with 



148 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

shipping. From time immemorial Alexandria had 
never been so busy. Some one had said that there 
was more shipping in the harbour during the past 
week or two than in any other harbour in the 
world. While doubting this, one could not but 
stand amazed at the amount of tonnage. Amongst 
the stately steamers that crowded the port one 
recognized old friends. " That's the old thing we 
went down to Gallipoli in," said a War Correspondent 
gazing seaward over the rail. She was swinging at 
her anchor awaiting her turn to take another load to 
the new sphere of action. 

In the smoking-room some officers were writing 
letters to wives or relatives or friends — letters that 
perhaps might never be delivered. Already the 
deadly submarine had accounted for one of our big 
ships. Luckily she had discharged her load, and 
so there was little loss of life. Nearly all the crew 
had come safely to Malta. She was simply one 
more vessel at the bottom of the Mediterranean, and 
some other ship would take her place to carry the 
overseas Armada on — to France ! On our port bow, 
near at hand, another trooper lifted her anchor and 
swung round, like a graceful lady in a ballroom, to 
make her exit through the gateway of the inner 
harbour. She, too, was crowded with troops for 
France. Many others followed. 

From the feet of the great mountains of Maoriland 
and the sun-baked plains of Australia to our new 
zone was a far cry, and already we had made history 
on the way. The stirring scenes — a wondrous 



THE NEW TREK 149 

succession of pictures — passed now with cinemato- 
graphic rapidity before the mind's eye — the first 
capture of German territory by ever-ready New 
Zealand ; the taking of German New Guinea by 
Australia ; the assembling of the great Armada 
at Albany ; the long trek across the seas ; the 
destruction of the Emden ; the hard training on 
the heavy scorching sands of Egypt ; the fight on 
the Canal ; the assembling of the still greater 
Armada at historic Lemnos ; the landing at Anzac ; 
the slaughter of the oncoming Turkish horde in 
May ; the taking of Lone Pine ; the charge of the 
Light Horse at the Nek ; the storming of Chunuk 
Bair by the New Zealanders in August ; the winter 
blizzards of the iEgean ; the marvellous evacuation ; 
Egypt and the Canal and the desert again. That 
was the end of the first film. 

And now this new venture. Another film is being 
threaded on the machine. Will it be as startlingly 
dramatic as the old ? No one can tell, but we who 
have seen something of the stress and strain of 
Gallipoli will await it with a calm confidence amidst 
the clash and rattle of the roaring loom of war in the 
new country whither we are bound. 



HOW THE ANZACS CAME TO 
FRANCE 

BY the grace of God, the might of the British 
and the Allied Fleets and the splendid energy 
and courage of the Mercantile Marine our Antipodean 
Army has once again been transported across the 
seas. This is its fourth great move by water. It 
has come from the land of perpetual sunshine to a 
country of grey, humid skies — from the arid sands 
of Egypt to the canals, the budding forests, and 
the well-tilled fields of France. The gloom of a 
late season is brightened by occasional days of clear 
sunshine, and the promise of a glorious spring is in 
the crisp air. New scenes and new interests await 
us at every turn. 

In these days of frightfulness it is a tremendous 
undertaking to transport an army across a few 
thousand miles of sea infested with enemy sub- 
marines. Yet here we are, within seventy yards of 
the German first line, and the German does not yet 
know it. English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Canadians, 
Australians, New Zealanders, Newfoundlanders, 
South Africans, Indians, Maoris, Nuie Islanders, 

150 



HOW THE ANZACS CAME TO FRANCE 151 

Ceylon Planters, Straits Settlements men — all these 
and others too are in France, fighting for the freedom 
of the world. The mere thought of it stirs the 
imagination, the actual achievement makes the 
pulses thrill. As I write thousands of Russians, 
amidst scenes of almost unparalleled enthusiasm, 
are landing at Marseilles. Looking back on it now, 
it seems very wonderful that we should have been 
safely transported thus far from the ends of our 
far-flung Empire. Once again the enemy has been 
outwitted, just as he was at the landing on Gallipoli, 
at the Suvla landing, and at the evacuation. How 
all this has been accomplished cannot be told in 
detail until the war is over. 

On March 30 we sailed from Egypt in a big 
Atlantic liner that carried an Anzac General and his 
staff and three thousand troops. During the voyage 
the submarine peril was ever in our minds. We 
lived with our life-belts. We took them with us 
even to our meals. At night we laid them handy 
beside our beds. When alarums were sounded the 
whole three thousand men and the ship's crew went 
orderly and quietly to their allotted stations. I was 
in charge of a collapsible boat inboard of one that 
was already swung out on the davits. Our duty, if 
our boat were ever launched — of which possibility 
some legitimate doubt occasionally crossed our minds 
— was to stand clear of the ship until she sank and 
then pull in and pick up as many men as we could 
out of the water. When the Southland was tor- 
pedoed with Australian and New Zealand troops on 



152 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

board off Mudros, one such boat to carry thirty 
actually saved fifty-seven, though it was floating 
bottom upward. In that perilous situation, on that 
frail craft, for hours wet to the skin, these men from 
the Antipodes faced death with a wonderful courage 
and even with gaiety. They sang hymns and songs 
and choruses. And they chaffed each other 
unmercifully on their bedraggled appearance. When 
the ship's crew deserted some twenty Australians 
and New Zealanders who were safely in the boats 
volunteered to go back into the stokehold of the 
torpedoed ship and feed her furnaces. With the 
water swishing about her holds, they did this, and 
brought her safely into port ! Is not that a stirring 
epic ? 

But the chances were that if a torpedo hit this ship 
fair and square our boat would never be launched, 
and that we should all soon be floundering in the 
water. In that case we should have to trust to 
Providence and the other boats. But three thousand 
men from a torpedoed ship in mid-ocean would take 
a lot of saving. The one soldier that every one was 
fully determined should be saved was the little man 
with the three rows of ribbons on his breast, pacing 
the deck, with a cheery word for every one — whom 
Hamilton, in a historic dispatch, had referred to as 
" The Soul of Anzac." On board that ship there 
was scarcely a man that would not willingly have 
given his own life to save his. 

We had pleasant days and calm seas throughout 
our voyage. Submarine guards were posted The 




The Gun astern was ready. 




In the track of the Caravans. 



HOW THE ANZACS CAME TO FRANCE 153 

gun astern was ready. Men with loaded rifles were 
detailed, at the word of command, to fire upon any 
hostile periscope emerging from the depths. On the 
bridge and on the upper decks a sharp look-out was 
kept. One fine day, after we had finished boat 
stations and were just sitting down to tea, the 
alarum went again — five short blasts on the ship's 
siren. 

" It may be the real thing this time," said a 
general as we rose from the table, fastening our 
life-belts as we went. There was no fuss, no undue 
hurry. Each one went quietly to his station as is 
the way with the British in time of peril. Arrived 
on deck we found the ship, with way suddenly 
checked, swinging round in a great circle. It really 
seemed as if we had sighted and were trying to 
dodge a submarine. But soon the word went round 
that a man had jumped overboard. He had been 
in prison for some offence. In a moment of mental 
derangement he thought to suddenly end it all. 
Still wearing his life-belt, he could be seen floating, 
alive, in the sea. In a few minutes he was a mere 
speck in the ocean, then quickly lost to sight. A 
fast grey mine-sweeper, with long thin wireless masts, 
that had been convoying us dashed up, the foam 
rising from her bow, but searched in vain. The big 
liner was still swinging round in a great sweep. About 
half an hour had elapsed. Suddenly the red-painted 
life-buoys thrown overboard when the man jumped 
were seen floating in the sea, and, presently, the man 
also floating, with head thrown back, and an arm 



154 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

tossed by the waves as if he were still alive. There 
was a disposition to cheer, but it was quickly 
checked, for many recognized that, by his rash act, 
this one man had endangered the lives of three 
thousand. Perhaps in war-time the ship should 
have gone straight on, leaving him to his fate, but 
British seamen are not built that way. 

As the man passed astern, those with keen sight 
noted his wan face. He made no attempt to turn 
toward the passing ship. He was already dead. 
There was left only the chance of resuscitation. So, 
with her backing screws churning the sea to foam, 
the ship came almost to a dead stop and a boat was 
lowered. By this time the man was again far astern 
and lost to sight. The boat's crew rowed — a long 
pull — into the eye of the setting sun. Directed 
from the ship, they reached the floating body and 
hauled it into the boat. In suspense we watched 
the boat rowed slowly back with two oars. As it 
neared the ship we noted a naked form across a 
thwart and two men endeavouring to restore a life 
already gone beyond recall. In silence, the thou- 
sands of soldiers watching curiously, the boat 
with its crew and the limp naked form was hoisted on 
board, and the ship proceeded on her way, zigzagging 
across a leaden sea. That night there was a splash 
in the dark water — there was one out of three 
thousand that would never see the battlefields of 
Northern France. 

Divine service at sea is at any time an impressive 
ceremonial, in time of war it is doubly so, and the 



HOW THE ANZACS CAME TO FRANCE 155 

hymn " For those in peril on the sea " has a special 
significance, while " Onward, Christian soldiers, 
marching as to war," sung by two or three thousand 
soldiers, thrills the nerves and sets the pulses beating 
a little faster. There is not a woman's voice in all 
that great chorus. Leaning on the railing above the 
well deck, where the men, all wearing their life-belts, 
are closely packed, are five generals, various members 
of the staff, and some soldiers. The young parson 
stands beside the Commander of the Corps. He is a 
Cambridge man, a native of Tasmania, who has 
taken holy orders. Enlisting in the ranks as a 
common soldier, he has risen to the grade of Lieu- 
tenant. He is a thin-faced man of rather poor 
physique, but with the heart of a Hon. Whatever 
may be said as to the polity of a soldier of the 
Church becoming a soldier in the Army, there is no 
doubt whatever that the men respect and look up to 
the fighting parson. The stirring sermon that this 
young lieutenant preached that Sunday as our 
vessel churned her way towards the Western 
battlefields, with the white houses of Pantalaria 
looming ghost-like through the grey mists, made a 
deep impression upon all who heard it. The 
fighting parson was en rapport with the fighting 
Anzacs. 

Next day the troops assembled once more, crowd- 
ing the after deck and even climbing the rigging to 
hear an address from their beloved General. Speak- 
ing extempore in his quick clear way, he recapitulated 
briefly the deeds of the past on Gallipoli, and told 



156 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

the new troops that he knew they would play the 
game just the same as the old hands. He told 
stories with a humour that made them laugh 
heartily, and spoke of the splendid spirit of the men 
in the attacks on Lone Pine, the Nek, and Chunuk 
Bair. He spoke also of the entreaties of men to be 
allowed to serve in the rear-guard during the 
evacuation. In writing to the Private Secretary of 
the King, he had mentioned this latter fact, and the 
Secretary in reply had said, " The part of your letter 
that gave the King by far the greatest pleasure was 
that in which you describe the men as fighting to 
get into the positions of the greatest danger " ; and 
he had added — " with a spirit like that running 
through your force, you may well be proud of your 
Army Corps." Finally the General urged his men 
to keep three things ever before their minds — 
training, fighting, and discipline. And he added, 
the greatest of these is discipline. In this connexion 
he said he felt sure that in the new land to which 
they were going, there would not be a single soldier 
from Australia or New Zealand who would not 
rather cut off his right hand than see the women and 
children of the soldiers of France who were at the 
front, not as safe in their keeping as would be their 
own wives and daughters and sisters at home. 

" Three cheers for the General," cried some one at 
the conclusion of the address. There was a ringing 
response, followed by a buzz of conversation. 
" Thank you, boys," said the General simply, and 
then the bugle sounded the " dismiss." 



HOW THE ANZACS CAME TO FRANCE 157 

With such stirring incidents, along our devious 
route, we steamed across these seas, and one grey 
morning awoke to find the rocky hills of Southern 
France and the tower of Notre Dame de la Garde 
looming through the mists behind Marseilles. And 
into that city, with centuries of stirring history 
behind it, and with a glorious promise of spring in 
the avenues of the budding plane trees, our good 
ship poured out her three thousand troops. Other 
ships had come in before us. Still others were 
following in our wake. The long-expected had 
come at last — we had reached the promised land ! 



THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 

" T T rOULD you like to see a miracle ? " said the 
VV Colonel as we came to a break in the 
communication trench, and looked along a disused 
road. 

We assured him that we should. 

" Well, scatter," he added, as we emerged from 
the trench one at a time, for the Germans could see 
this road, and in these days even miracles cannot 
be seen in safety if you cross open spaces in groups. 

In a green field on our right beside the road was a 
huge shell-hole. It was as if some earthy carbuncle 
had been rooted from the soil. On the left, some 
little distance ahead, were the ruins of peasant 
homes. And near them, in a shattered shrine, was 
a Christ, life-sized and untouched, on a cross. The 
tumbled bricks lay in a red heap at the foot of the 
cross. Only the areole behind the crucifix was 
slightly broken. The cross and the figure had 
escaped unscratched. That was the miracle. 

" The people here go down on their knees before 
that," said the Colonel. 

On a used road, close up behind the firing line, 
was another crucifix. A young woman walking 

158 



THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 159 

along the road went up to it, made a genuflexion 
and said an " Ave Maria." Continuing her journey 
she saw a little child playing by the roadside. She 
took the child back to the shrine, and made her, too, 
say an " Ave Maria." 

Change the scene now to a homely interior in one 
of the villages also not far behind the firing line. 
The husband is home from the trenches on leave, 
and is eating a meal. The women are working at 
their ordinary domestic duties. The bell for the 
Angelus tolls. The man stops his eating, the women 
their work. Each one goes through the same per- 
formance, reverently, as did the young woman and 
the little child at the roadside shrine. 

It is this deeply religious spirit, combined with 
pride of race and love of country, a supreme con- 
fidence in their own powers, and a great faith in 
their just cause, that is winning the war in France 
to-day. There are no rebels in this land, no con- 
scientious objectors, no stop-the-war party. Every 
one knows that the war must go on, and on, to its 
legitimate end. And each realizes fully that there 
is only one way out — the destroying Hun must 
himself be destroyed. Those who had lost faith in 
the French have had to revise their estimate. All 
the old gallantry is still there ; but with it a more 
calculating cleverness and ability than of old. Those 
young officers from the School of St. Cyr who swore 
to go into their first battle with the traditional white 
gloves and plumed kepis of their promotion cere- 
monial, and did so, fell quickly in consequence ; but 



i6o LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

they typified the old elan. Without that spirit 
France could not win battles as she is winning them 
to-day. That brilliant Frenchman, M. Barres, has 
well expressed the spirit that, in August, 1914, ran 
freely through the land when the call to arms was 
made : "In all the villages the bells rang out from 
the old church towers whose foundations He among 
the remains of the dead. They suddenly became the 
voices of the land of France. They summoned the 
men and comforted the women. So great was their 
clamour that it seemed as though they would break 
the very stones of the tombs, and their sound 
awakened in every French heart the noblest virtues 
that heart can contain." 

Yet it is a changed France that we see to-day. 
You get your first impression of an altered France 
on landing at Marseilles. But Marseilles itself is 
not changed. The docks and quays seem to be as 
busy as ever. There is a vast amount of shipping, 
mostly British. In the glorious avenues of the city 
the plane trees are bursting into leaf. There are 
no shattered monuments here. Marseilles is too 
far behind the lines. But you note a great change 
in the people. Everywhere there are soldiers, many 
of them wounded, some without a leg, some without 
an arm. 

Out of the gateway of the fort, at the entrance of 
the harbour that centuries ago held the argosies of 
the old conquering Greeks, comes a stream of strange 
troops — a mixture of black, and white, and brown. 
Some of them are big fellows, much stronger than 



THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 161 

the Germans who, under fixed bayonets, we saw 
unloading the ships near by. Marching up the 
Rue de la Republique comes a column of the little 
Senegalese, black and jolly, sweating in the warm 
sun under their packs and heavy overcoats. The 
mixture of caste and colour, and the variety of 
uniforms — blue, and red, and grey — remind you 
that France, like England, has her colonies, and 
that whereas Germany's overseas dominions are to 
her a sealed book, there is free intercommunication 
between the possessions of England and France and 
their motherlands. At one of the crowded quays 
soldiers partially recovered from wounds and sick- 
ness — a shipload of them — are going back to recruit 
their wasted strength in Algiers. 

For the first time we see soldiers wearing their 
steel casques. It almost seems as if we had stepped 
back into the spacious days of the crusades. Some 
of the casques have dents in them. In the varied 
cosmopolitan throng that moves and has its being in 
Marseilles, one rubs shoulders with tall, handsome 
Serbs in khaki, Australians of the " grand chapeau " 
— the French at first mistook them for the Corps 
Alpin of Italy — British, Canadians, New Zealanders, 
Maoris ; French, Italian, and English naval officers, 
and the advance guard of the friendly Russian 
influx that a few days later was to thrill the city 
with a new enthusiasm. All this variety and the 
riot of military colour struck strangely on our eyes 
after the dull faded khaki of Gallipoli and the 
Egyptian desert. ^ 

M 



162 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

By way of background there was a sombre note 
in the dresses of the women. A great many were 
in black, with veils of long heavy crape such as the 
Latins affect in times of mourning. But even these 
women were calm and confident. They were brave 
also, for they smiled through their tears. One saw 
scarcely any young men. These were in the lines at 
Verdun, stopping the mad onrush of the Hunnish 
horde, and along the lines South to Switzerland and 
North to Flanders, where were also the British, the 
Australians, the New Zealanders, and the Belgians, 
and more French. 

The old woman in the little shop where we buy 
some books has a brother in the lines, and is quite 
cheerful about the war. It will end all right for 
France. The Germans cannot win ! Yes, she has 
seen many Australians passing through Marseilles — 
the men with the " grand chapeau." Where are we 

going ? We tell her we are going to . Ah ! 

there is good beer and good cider in that place. 

In the evening we hail a fiacre to take us back to 
our transport. The cocher demands six francs. We 
offered him five, but he would not alter his first 
demand. We tried another man farther down the 
rank. He asked seven. We went back to the first 
driver and accepted the original offer. " Aha ! " 
he said, " I'll wager you the other man asked you 
seven." At the end of the journey we told him we 
were not rich men, and that it was the second year of 
the war. But to this his only reply was, " It is all a 
matter of commerce." The war, he said, was going 



THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 163 

all right. He bade us a cheery good night, and went 
his way chortling, forgetting even to ask us for a 
pourboire. 

In The Rapide to Paris. We are in a crowded 
train, travelling in the usual way at the usual speed. 
We climb the heights and get passing glimpses of the 
lights of Marseilles, very much as one looks on the 
lights at the head of the Adriatic while the train 
climbs from Fiume on its way to Buda-Pest. And 
there is no stint of good food and drink. The dinner 
is of the best. You can have your choice of five 
different brands of champagne, and a variety in red 
and white wines. And you can finish with a glass of 
benedictine or grand marnier and a cigar — the latter, 
for preference, of your own providing. The French 
officers travelling back to the front are bright and 
amusing and confident. Yet it was the fifty-fourth 
day of the battle of Verdun, and to the outside 
world the issue still hung in doubt. No, no, Verdun 
was not finished yet ! But the Germans would never 
take Verdun ! The English might be nervous about 
it — the French were serenely confident. One could 
not but admire the spirit of a nation such as this at 
a time when the greatest war in the world's history 
was being waged within its own boundaries. 

Paris ! A changed Paris. More women in black. 
More soldiers — though not so many as at Marseilles. 
Elderly bearded men, women, girls, and boys in the 
streets. Where was the gay boulevardier of the old 
Paris ? He had become a thing of the past. The 
casual English perhaps had been too prone to think 



164 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

that the light-hearted Frenchman of the boule- 
vards was the embodiment of the soul of France. 
He was not. The soul of France is rooted in her 
soil. You will find it in the towns and villages, and 
in the fields behind the lines as much as or more than 
you will in the cities. 

But the business life of Paris seemed to go on 
much as it did before the war. Such shops as were 
closed at the height of the German menace had, in 
nearly every case, reopened their doors. The 
ordinary shops were doing business as usual, though 
the volume of trade might not be as great. It was 
very much as in London. Just as you missed the 
fashionably-dressed throng in Bond Street, so you 
missed it in the rue de la Paix. And jewellery there 
was cheaper than it used to be. In the Place 
Vendome the great costumiers that set the fashions 
for half a continent were no longer adding up 
extravagant bills. No rich ladies from London and 
no American millionairesses ride up in their cars 
nowadays. The Place Vendome is almost as silent 
as a tomb. Only at Rumpelmayer's did you see 
something of the old smartness in dress ; but the 
rooms held a subdued gaiety, and while there were 
smart young women the only smart young men were 
soldiers wounded or on leave. 

The Louvre was closed, its treasures hidden 
farther South, but we were told that already they 
were coming back. Notre Dame, in the silent gloom 
of which we rest and meditate awhile, still stands, 
and the light still shines through the glorious rose 



THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 165 

window as it did of old. Indeed, all the monuments 
of Paris are safe. Thank God the destroying Huns, 
with the cold machines that have been made the 
symbol of their Kultur, were foiled in their attempt 
to add Paris to their other acts of desecration and 
destruction. It is some satisfaction to us to know 
that this was in a measure made possible by the 
coming of the English. In large measure also the 
German plan failed because of the promptitude and 
the resource of a French General who, in thousands 
of taxi-cabs, hurriedly and unexpectedly rushed up 
an army that formed a barrier upon which this wave 
of modern Kultur broke and spent its force and then 
receded. That great General, greatly mourned, 
lies in an honoured tomb. He has not lived to see 
the final victory. 

And now a new spirit has fallen upon Paris. 
Paris still stands as it stood, but the people have 
changed. The gay life — never quite so gay as it 
was painted, and less vicious a great deal than that 
of Berlin — has given place to a sober seriousness that, 
while it does not seem natural to a Latin race, yet 
synchronizes with the times. 

From Paris to and along the front in the next few 
days we rode many miles in trains and motor-cars 
through the fertile fields of France. Everywhere one 
saw soldiers — here a regiment of young Frenchmen 
in bluish-grey singing as they marched along the 
straight, unending Roman roads ; there Canadian 
cavalry, strong, hardy, and resolute, riding easily in 
a fold in the hills ; and yonder the tall, big meat-fed 



166 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

men from the outer lands already going into the 
trenches. 

But in the midst of all this preparation and 
atmosphere of war, the most astonishing thing was 
the intense cultivation of the land. The old men 
and the women and children, with a determination 
and an industry of which few other nations are 
capable, had left scarce a square yard that could be 
spared from the grass lands untilled. Streams ran 
swollen through the gently-sloping valleys in which 
the meadows were emerald. Cowslips and violets 
decked the floor of the woods where elms were 
budding, and the tender green of the larch and the 
chestnut relieved the copper-brown of the beech. 
Peach and cherry blossom were already brightening 
the scene. The corn was sprouting quickly under 
the soft influence of passing April showers. The 
country, like its people, was smiling through its tears. 



BEHIND THE LINES 

IN the quaint old-fashioned towns and villages 
behind the lines in Northern France British and 
Colonial soldiers fraternize with the inhabitants 
within sound of the guns. The English are learning 
French, the French are learning English. In the 
towns the men are free to wander up and down the 
streets, and to add to their daily ration little deli- 
cacies easily procurable. No bread tickets are 
needed in France. The armies and the people have 
an abundance. There is no stint of good food. For 
amusement there are the cinemas and the concert 
halls and tents. On a Sunday when the birds were 
singing in the forest and the land was bathed in 
sunshine, I wandered into one of the cinema halls 
in a town that had just escaped the German onrush. 
It had a little stage with scenery painted by the 
Tommies themselves. Beside the operator's stall 
there was even a box for officers. True it was not 
regal in its furnishings, but it filled the bill. The 
seats on the sawdusted floor were provision boxes. 
The stage was occupied by an Anzac Padre, one 
who was much under shot and shell in the Gallipoli 

167 



168 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

trenches. The hall was filled with officers and 
soldiers gravely listening to his sermon. Flaring 
posters of the cinema shows decked the walls — 
" Harry Day presents ' Kiss me, Sergeant,' ' To- 
night's the Night,' " and similar themes. The 
Padre himself must have been struck with the in- 
congruity of his surroundings, though they did not 
detract from the forcibleness of his sermon. He 
would no doubt be the first to recognize that the 
Cinema as well as the Sermon has a place behind the 
lines. 

Behind the lines you obtain some idea of the 
extent to which mechanical transport is used in 
modern warfare. Great motor-lorries were drawn 
up in long columns by the roadside or rumbled 
past with ammunition and provisions and a hundred 
and one other things. Motor-cars, motor- ambu- 
lances, motor-cycles, and the ordinary bicycle also 
moved to and fro along the tree-lined roads. When 
you see a mo tor- lorry numbered 27,696 you are 
inclined to rub your eyes and look again. But 
there is no doubt about it. In this war petrol 
counts, and the consumption must be enormous. A 
whole army has been shifted on to a threatened 
flank and the situation saved by the taxi-cabs of a 
city. True there are horse teams also on these 
roads. At Gallipoli we had to man-handle our guns 
and even our shells, but here you find the horses 
still harnessed to the field gun and the howitzer 
of moderate calibre, though one day quite recently 
I saw some huge things swathed in tarpaulins 



BEHIND THE LINES 169 

being drawn across our front by extraordinary 
engines with caterpillar wheels that made one 
conjure up visions of antediluvian animals that 
lived when the denizens of this world fought with 
tusks and teeth. Occasionally you do see an officer 
or a man astride a horse. But the man in a hurry 
takes a motor-car. Your modern knight is a knight 
on wheels — that is when he is not a knight with 
wings. Day and night this mechanical transport 
goes snorting and rumbling by, the heavy laden 
lorries shaking the very earth, making the windows 
rattle, and waking you in your sleep. 

Nearer the firing line you may seek for adventure 
in the battered towns that still lie within the zone of 
fire. The French cling tenaciously to their homes 
though every week the German gunners take their 
toll of civilian lives. I know well one such town 
wherein you may still buy tobacco or get shaved, 
but always with the possibility that it will be the 
last tobacco you will buy or the last shave you will 
pay for. I went with a staff officer through the 
town for a little distance in a car. At the end of 
a street on which the grass was growing we left the 
car, and commenced a hot and tiresome walk. 
The street up which we went had been shelled and 
shelled again. The guns were firing as we went. 
Save for an officer and a few men not a solitary soul 
walked that street. A glance into the shops and 
the houses revealed only deplorable ruin. Some 
of the scenes were pathetic. In one house a per- 
ambulator half buried in the huddle of bricks and 



170 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

mortar, and a cup half full of tea on a table indicated 
a precipitate flight from the German shells. One 
wondered what had happened to the baby. Was it 
still alive, or was it alive and an orphan ? Almost 
every house and every shop in that street had been 
hit. There were some buildings that were in 
absolute ruin. Others were holed, but still habit- 
able. Tiled roofs were torn and rent as if they had 
been made of paper. Gaps of varied dimensions 
were there to let in the rain or the sunshine. The 
dust left from falling brick and mortar lay thick 
on table, chair, and bedstead, undisturbed since 
the day the people had fled. A rat ran through 
the ruin, prowling for provender. 

Away behind the lines on the borders of a ravished 
land the little mounds are beginning to be heaped 
over our dead. But that was only what our men 
expected. They have taken the chances, knowing 
full well what they were to fight for, and already 
some of them have given their all. They are sleep- 
ing their last sleep in alien but friendly soil. From 
some touching verses in The Anzac Book one 
stanza befitting the occasion may be appropriately 
quoted — 

Yet where the brave man lies who fell in fight 
For his dear country, there his country is. 

And we will mourn them proudly as of right — 
For meaner deaths be weeping and loud cries : 
They died pro patria. 

It is often stated that all the romance and pic- 
turesqueness has gone out of war, but that is an 



BEHIND THE LINES 171 

inaccurate estimate. The warrior of to-day it is 
true does not ride off with his lady- fair at his saddle- 
bow, and he is much more likely to use the cur- 
tailed modern equivalent of " By our Lady " than 
the original phrase. He recognizes that poison 
gas, tear shells, flame liquid, and high explosive 
are more deadly and more prosaic than the harque- 
buse and the javelin. He may even be a little 
disappointed not to find the splendid wine and the 
foaming tankard of the romantic novelist. The 
old lady in the bookshop at Marseilles who told us 
that there was good beer and good cider here was 
at least not an expert ! The beer of the country 
doesn't foam. It is a weak, brown, wishy-washy 
liquid that even Jacques, our landlady's boy aged 
ten, has with his breakfast, and as for the wine — 
well, there is wine and wine ; but the average 
Colonial soldier has not the cultivated palate. 

But for all this, many of our men realize that 
they are in a land of history and romance. There 
are still maids that are fair — the Frank and the 
Flemish — and the bar of an alien language was ever 
one that could be readily overcome in the fields of 
romance. Already attachments are being formed, 
and it will be strange if, when the war is over, 
some of our antipodean soldiers do not settle down 
in this fair land, or take with them to the sunnier 
climes of Australia and New Zealand some of the 
fair maids of France. 



GROUPS IN CAMP 

IF the shades of Clive or Wolfe wander across 
Salisbury Plain in this pleasant spring weather 
they must be surprised when they watch our latest 
soldiers in the making. They would be mystified 
if they were told that finished soldiers were turned 
out from the raw material in a few weeks. 

But it is different material from that which 
went to stiffen the ranks on the Plains of Abraham. 
One realizes that there has been a change when a 
newly-promoted bombardier approaches his subal- 
tern and, saluting, asks if he might be allowed to 
bring his car into camp. Near a large training 
centre in the Southern Command there is an ex- 
cellent golf course and every evening one may see 
two limber gunners, a driver, and a battery tele- 
phonist playing a friendly foursome. At least one 
of the four men has played against Braid and Hilton. 
Coming back to camp the foursome is joined by two 
other men in gunner's uniform, and the talk turns 
to the preservation of game. The No. i of Number 
Three gun tells the No. 3 of Number One gun just 
where and when he liberated his last lot of salmon 
fry in his own stretch of fishing in the North. 

172 



GROUPS IN CAMP 173 

These are some of the men who, after wearing the 
Red Crown and khaki armlet of the attested, are 
now face to face with the reality. These men have 
for the most part proved themselves ideal material, 
and even the hardened sergeant-major, from whom 
praise comes grudgingly, has to admit that he has 
never seen their like for conscientious work and 
general cleanliness. The slovenly soldier is in- 
variably found out at kit inspection, and so is the 
good one. The new men seem to have started their 
life in the Army with the avowed intention of 
showing the old hands the real worth of new 
willing material. They are wearing down the pre- 
judices of years, and one glance inside a hut occupied 
by them is sufficient to show why. When you see 
men arranging their kit for inspection and alining 
every article in each kit with a length of cord so 
that all the mess-tins, all the housewives and hold- 
alls are dressed like a row of railway sleepers, then 
you know that these men are out to prove their 
worth. When the same men buy themselves boot- 
scrapers and coir mats that their huts may be kept 
the cleaner, when they plant flowers by their doors, 
then how can you fail to look and admire ? 

Queer things happen on these parades. An in- 
structor, armed with all the knowledge of Shoebury 
and Woolwich, asks after a lecture if there are any 
questions. The queries he gets set him searching 
the back corners of his brain for the very empirical 
formulae of the gunner. He temporizes, and per- 
haps says that he will deal with that matter in his 



174 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

next lecture. It is disconcerting when one is ad- 
dressing a class of gunners, all recruits, to be sud- 
denly asked if it would not be easier to work out the 
battery angle by using a subversed sine ! 

The questioner may have been a qualified sur- 
veyor or an honours man in mathematics. 

When he joins the Army a man may find himself 
in a strange backwater. A railway mechanic may 
be put on to drive a limbered wagon, or a polo groom 
may find himself in the artificers' shop. This hap- 
pens too often, despite the multitude of papers 
which every newly joined recruit has to fill in and 
the most personal and sometimes irrelevant in- 
quiries which he has to answer as to his qualifica- 
tions. He may look forward to being put into some 
congenial and suitable position ; but he is often 
disappointed and becomes a round peg in the square 
hole. The cookery may be controlled by an ex- 
plumber, while a former restaurant cook may be 
orderly-room clerk. An optician, who was ob- 
viously cut out for a range-finder, may be helping 
the battery farrier, while a pastry-cook may be 
sending down strange ranges to the guns. 

In the old Army such things were not so notice- 
able. There was almost an eternity for training ; 
and if a man started in the wrong groove he settled 
down in the fullness of time. In the new Army all 
classes, trades, and professions are embodied. 
Often a man may be doing a private's work when 
he should have command and responsibility. In 
some cases it is obvious that the man should not 



GROUPS IN CAMP 175 

be allowed to stay in the ranks. There is a mining 
engineer who served in the ranks as a private, but 
after ten months his worth was realized and he was 
promoted. He is now a captain and wears the 
Military Cross. His chief occupation now is think- 
ing out delightful surprises for the Boche. He is a 
master of all explosive unpleasantnesses, and the 
strip of country in front of his trench is in a state 
of constant eruption. There are many such men 
in the new Army, and they are worth watching for 
and culling from the herd. 

Late arrivals though they were, these men are 
no conscripts. They take well to the routine and 
discipline. Among them are many men accustomed 
to command, and such men almost invariably submit 
to discipline with good grace, for they know the 
reason and the need for it. They are the leaven 
of the lump. 



A CHEERFUL ARMY 

WELL, this is better than Gallipoli," said 
the General, smiling. 

" My blooming oath ! " replied the Australian 
soldier, and there was a world of meaning in his 
curt phrase. 

" How's your health here ? " ventured the 
General, still smiHng. 

" Pretty crook," came the quick response. It 
had occurred to him that in his first reply he might 
have admitted too much. 

Both answers were typical of the character of the 
Colonial soldier. But to one who does not know 
" Tommy Cornstalk " this apparent casualness 
might seem to indicate familiarity, if not disrespect. 
Yet nothing was farther from the Anzac soldier's 
mind. Just as the English " Tommy " used to 
refer affectionately to Lord Roberts as " Bobs," 
so the Colonial soldier has his own particular nick- 
names for the Generals and the officers he knows. 

When Lord Kitchener, General Maxwell, 
General Birdwood and General Godley climbed 
the heights of Anzac to view the Turkish lines, one 
of the Anzacs asked who they were ? 

176 



A CHEERFUL ARMY 177 

" Oh, that's Billy Birdwood and three other 
blokes," said his mate. 

A little later, when Lord Kitchener addressed 
the troops, this apparently indifferent soldier would 
be one of the first to join the cheering throng. 
Similarly, when the Prince of Wales was in Egypt 
he was heartily acclaimed by the Australians and 
the New Zealanders, though one of the most en- 
thusiastic was afterwards heard to say: " I don't 
take much stock in Royalty, but I simply had to 
cheer like blazes ! " 

The Cockney soldier has a humour of his own ; 
the Irishman has a ready wit that never fails ; and 
there is the delightful humour of the Scots soldier 
with which Ian Hay has made us so familiar. The 
crisp dry humour of the Canadian was a novelty 
in France ; and now there has been added another 
blend, for the men from the Antipodes have brought 
with them a humour and a slang of their own. 
Their definition of the various batches of volunteers 
that have come out to fight is worth quoting. The 
first contingent became known as " The Tourists." 
They were out to see a bit of the world. Inciden- 
tally they would do any righting that came along. 
And they did it. Then came " The Dinkums " — the 
true fighting men they called themselves — " din- 
kum " signifying the very embodiment of all the 
virtues. There followed " The Super-Dinkums," 
" The War Babies," and " The Hard Thinkers," the 
latter having thought a great deal before they came. 
But even the " Hard Thinkers " are up to the mark- 

N 



178 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

It will tax the ingenuity of the Colonial " Tommy " 
to find appropriate names for the batches yet to 
come, but one may be sure that he will do so. 

In the meantime strange Australasian terms are 
being grafted on to the language of the French 
and the Flemings. Even the " imshi " of the 
Egyptian Arab has been transplanted into the 
vocabulary of the boys and girls of Northern France 
per media of the soldiers from overseas. 

Often the Colonial " Tommy " affects an air of 
surprise or incredulity when his first reply is not 
exactly understood. 

" What do you belong to, my man ? " asked a 
famous General who was visiting Anzac. 

" Me? " replied the "Tommy." "Oh, I belong 
to the famous Third." 

" Why famous ? " inquired the General. 

" Why fa Why famous ! " exclaimed the 

" Tommy." " Why ! We're the blokes wot took 
these blooming hills ! " 

And now the Colonial is beginning to adapt 
another language to the new environment in which 
he finds himself, but his incursion into the strange 
vocabulary sometimes leads to rather amusing 
consequences. 

Recently an officer asked one of his men if he was 
guilty of a certain dereliction of duty. 

" Oui, oui," replied the delinquent. 

" Very well, seven days C.B. Vous comprenez ? " 
said the officer. 

In Egypt and on the way to France, the necessity 



A CHEERFUL ARMY 179 

for good discipline was instilled into our troops, 
and their behaviour has been satisfactory. It has 
been the custom in the past to tell amusing stories 
about the discipline of our troops and that of the 
Canadians. The question of saluting was often the 
theme. " I saw an extraordinary thing to-day," 
an English officer said one evening in the mess. 
" What was that ? " asked a brother officer. 
" Well," replied he, "I saw a Colonial soldier 
saluting his Colonel ! " That story, however, can 
no longer be told with any semblance of accuracy. 
Both Australian and New Zealand soldiers now 
salute as if to the manner born. 

Last winter when the snow came in Flanders, 
and khaki was found to be all too conspicuous a 
dress in No-man's-land, an ingenious officer hit 
upon the idea of clothing his patrols in white night- 
shirts. The difficulty was to secure an adequate 
supply, for, even in slow-moving Flanders, the night- 
shirt is now almost a thing of the past. And before 
they could be made to order the snow might have 
disappeared. The gallant young officer who was 
intrusted with the commission resolved not to be 
baffled by a mere technicality, so he invaded the 
ladies' department of one of the largest shops in 
the nearest town and gave the puzzled and blushing 
maid behind the counter a wholesale order for all 
the robes de nuit she had in stock. Clad in these 
garments, his night patrols went out across the 
snows unobserved by the wily Boche ; but that 
particular battalion laid itself open to the charge 



i8o LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

that it was putting on frills. However, it didn't 
mind, as it was putting them on in a good 
cause. 

A week or two later, when a new battalion " took 
over " and all the snow had gone, the incoming O.C. 
received a message from Headquarters asking how 
many white night-shirts he required for his night 
patrols ? Regarding the matter as a joke, and 
determining to get even, he wired back : "Do 
not require any white night-shirts for patrols, but 
would like some pink pyjamas for my listening 
posts." 

The humorists began very early in the campaign, 
and the Anzac censors certainly got a great deal 
of amusement out of their work. Men often took 
the opportunity afforded of having a dig at their 
own officers, knowing that they had to censor their 
letters. In nearly every instance the officers were 
sportsmen enough to let the criticisms pass. There 
was a touch of delicious humour in the epistle of 
one "Tommy " who wrote: " Dear Bill, I enclose 
ten bob for tobacco. Please let me know if you get 
this, as it has to pass the Censor." 

The Anzac Book, which is one of the literary 
treasures of the war, contains many examples of the 
humour of the Australian and New Zealand troops. 
But the Anzacs, ready though they be, have no 
monopoly of this saving grace. The Dardanelles 
Driveller which ran to one number and then 
ceased publication, had one or two efforts that 
were gems of their kind. For instance — 



A CHEERFUL ARMY 



181 



Birth. 
On May 10, at Gladstone Villa, the wife of John Jones of 
twin sons. 

Death. 
On May 10, at Gladstone Villa, John Jones. 

Then there was that effort entitled — 

Y Beach. 
" Y Beach," the Scottish Borderer cried, 
While panting up the steep hillside, 

"Y Beach." 
"To call this thing a beach is stiff : 
It's nothing but a blighty cliff — 

Why Beach ? " 

Much of the humour of the trenches loses force, 
and something of its character, through having to 
be translated into drawing-room English. One 
Anzacian who had spent a busy morning with his 
shirt was heard soliloquizing at the mouth of his 
dug-out : " Lord lumme ! I'm blest if the little 
blighters haven't got patrols out on me bloomin' 
tunic ! " Nothing could be more disappointing 
than such a disaster, involving, as it did, further 
industry of the most patient kind, yet the " Tommy " 
got his joke out of it. 

When the New Zealanders had been ashore about 
two hours at Anzac, a party of them was proceeding 
down the then tortuous path from Walker's Ridge. 
From an opposite slope a sergeant posted there for 
that purpose called out a warning. " That path 
is mined, ' ' he yelled down at the men below. ' ' Then 
catch us as we come up again," answered an ir- 
repressible humorist in the front of the party. 



182 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

On the same path later in the day a wounded 
Tasmanian was dragging himself painfully down 
the slope in a sitting position. He had been shot 
in the groin, and as he bumped over the rough ground 
an officer going up towards Walker's tried to comfort 
him a little. " Pretty hard work, sergeant," he 
said cheerily. The answer he got surprised him. 
" Damn hard on my pants," he said gloomily. 



BATTLE SOUNDS 

IT takes some time to get used to new noises in 
war. At Anzac we knew almost every gun 
by name, and could sleep through a duet by " Beachy 
Bill " and " Startling Annie," to say nothing of the 
melody of our own howitzers and field guns. At 
times, when we were very tired, even the resounding 
bang from the Destroyer on our flank failed to wake 
us. " Did you hear old Beachy pooping off this 
morning ? " was a frequent query. And as often 
as not the answer was in the negative. We used 
rather to admire " Beachy," and, though he got 
many of our men, friendly messages were left 
behind for him. I have often wondered where he 
has pitched his new emplacement. We had also a 
great affection for the Destroyers. There were two 
of them — one on each flank — and their memory will 
live. Our particular Destroyer was on the left, 
and the Lord, and perhaps the Turk, knows how 
much we have to thank her for. 

Here, in France, it is all different, and just as the 
eye has to get used to new sights, so the ear has 
to get used to new sounds. There are guns of so 

183 



184 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

many types and calibres, and a charming variety 
in bombs, from the docile " Mills," which you can 
handle affectionately before presentation to the 
enemy, to the big fat trench mortar fellows de- 
scribing a graceful arc from trench to trench ; from 
the rifle grenade that goes away like a rocketing 
pheasant ; to the more decorous flight of the ball 
thrown from the big catapult that reminds you of the 
times and expedients of Julius Caesar. 

And there are all the other sounds of war. The 
first night in a town near the firing line is a novel 
experience. After a tiring day in the trenches and 
a late dinner you go to bed at peace with every one — 
almost with the enemy. But that frame of mind 
does not last. In the so-called silence of the night 
a continuous rumble strikes in upon the ear. It 
is the noise that comes from many wheels of motor- 
lorries and carts, and it seems to continue unceas- 
ingly. Night after night it will go on until the 
war ends. It comes from the transport, taking food 
and ammunition, and timber and wire, and goodness 
only knows what else besides up to the front line. 
Before the war we thought that rather a safe job. 
Yet here along our extensive front there is not a night 
that men are not killed and wounded at that work. 
It was a stirring sight to see the Australians gallop- 
ing their teams along a shrapnelled road at night 
in answer to a message for more ammunition for 
their guns. The men on the Umbers sat with folded 
arms as if on parade, with the shrapnel bursting over- 
head. 



BATTLE SOUNDS 185 

The rumble of wheels goes on till far into the 
night. At intervals you recognize the old familiar 
tat-tat-tat-ing of machine guns. These are sweep- 
ing the parapets, or spraying the roads and saps 
along which food for man and gun is being carried. 
The wonder is that so few are hit. At times you 
hear the measured tramp of a platoon or company — 
a working party or a relief — bound for the trenches. 
It is a peculiar sound that tramp ! tramp ! tramp ! 
of marching men. You can hear the spring and 
creak of the leather in their boots as they pass. 

The dial of your illuminated wrist-watch tells 
you how the hours go past. Towards midnight 
you are startled with a loud and continuous can- 
nonade. It begins with an appalling suddenness, 
and increases in intensity. It may last for ten 
minutes or for an hour, or for several hours. If for 
the shorter period you know it is a raid ; if for the 
longer, you surmise a more general attack. The 
guns on either side give tongue in a loud dissonance, 
the concussion rattling your windows and making 
the very earth tremble. You count the discharges 
not by so many a minute, but by so many a second. 
The bigger shells go tearing through the air with 
a noise of rending cloth of huge dimension and 
great strength. The smaller ones come with an 
insidious whistle and the crunch of high explosive 
almost before the whistle has ended. These are 
the " whiz-bangs." There are others that come 
even a bit quicker. They might be called the 
" bang- whizes." And so the night goes on. Next 



186 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

morning at your tea and toast in the calm security 
of your home in England you may read in the com- 
munique that there was " comparative quiet all 
along the line." And so there was. What we 
have been listening to is a mere madrigal of war 
compared with the Wagnerian noises that rend the 
air at Ypres, at Verdun, and at the Somme. 

A few years ago such a cannonade as we have 
frequently had on our front — shells coming three 
and four a second, and the whole sky illuminated 
with their flashings — would presage a big battle. 
But when after ten or twenty minutes, or an hour, 
the fire dies down, we know that it is only a small 
foray — what we call a cutting-out expedition. 
For a few hundred yards the enemy's trenches or 
our own, as the case may be, are blown to bits, and 
most of the men in them killed or wounded or 
stupefied. The men who are to do the raiding then 
climb over their parapet, go with a rush across the 
hundred yards or so of No-man's-land, jump into the 
trenches of the enemy that have been breached and 
battered beyond recognition, kill a few men, secure 
some prisoners and material — papers, bombs, flares, 
trench mortars, or even machine guns — and then 
get back as best they can to their own trenches 
through a hail of the enemy's bombs and shrapnel. 
They are protected from serious attack by their 
own guns, which as they start out suddenly switch 
off right and left to prevent reserves coming along 
the enemy trench, and, in the centre, " lift " to form 
a barrage behind that will prevent help arriving 



BATTLE SOUNDS 187 

from that direction. On the way back they may 
leave a few of their own men dead or wounded 
in No-man's-land, but, generally, the honours are 
with the raiding party. As a rule more are killed 
and wounded by the shelling. The matter is all 
thought out beforehand to the minutest detail — 
the calm and deliberate diabolicalness of it is simply 
amazing. But remember it has all been made 
possible by the gentle apostles of culture — the 
peace-loving nation that, to save its own soul and 
body, had to wage a campaign of Rightfulness 
against warlike Belgium and militant England ! 
From one point in our trenches we can obtain 
an excellent view of the enemy's line and at the 
same place look back and see our own front for a 
considerable distance. Our patrols go out through 
that gap at night, right up to the German wire. 
They listen to the Germans talking. Recently 
they have heard some rather juvenile voices. Oc- 
casionally they meet an opposing patrol, and then 
there is trouble. It is valorous work this crawling 
through No-man's-land like a red Indian through 
the prairie grass, especially when flares are sent 
up and illumine the immediate surroundings, but 
there are lots of men who delight in it. Indeed, 
even for a noncombatant the temptation to make 
one of a patrol is hard to resist. A few nights ago a 
young New Zealand officer in charge of a patrol came 
suddenly upon a German working party out to mend 
their wire. As the New Zealanders were largely 
outnumbered they scuttled back to the safety of 



188 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

their own trenches. As they gave the password and 
hurriedly hopped over their own parapet, one man 
making a great noise as he landed on a tin 
periscope, they seemed to be intensely amused. 
At all events the young officer greatly enjoyed the 
experience, and his account of it, instead of being 
intensely dramatic, was concerned only with the 
humour of the situation. He regarded it as a great 
bit of luck that he had been able to get out on two 
night patrols within a week. A Member of Parlia- 
ment who enlisted as a private and is now a junior 
officer had also the good luck to lead a night patrol 
into No-man's-land. For such adventure there is 
no lack of volunteers. Recently when men were 
wanted for a raid on the German trenches practi- 
cally the whole of an Australian battalion, officers 
and men, volunteered, though only twenty or thirty 
men were wanted. 

It is at the midnight hour, in an almost deserted 
town close up to the firing line, when all the guns 
are turned on, and with the thunder of the guns 
echoing among the deserted houses and streets, 
that you get your most vivid impression of the sounds 
of war. 



J 





AN INTERLUDE IN WAR 

IN the mythology of the Maori there are chronicled 
many strange incidents — the romantic happen- 
ings of love and peace and war. Handed down 
from the mists of antiquity by means of the wonder- 
ful memories of the Tohungas or high priests — for the 
Maori had no written language — these adventures 
of their forefathers yet live, and both the actualities 
and the myths of bygone generations have still an 
influence upon Maori character. It would require 
no great stretch of the Maori imagination to feel 
that the spirit of Heke, the old warrior who defied 
the British, and time after time cut down the pole 
from which fluttered the English flag in Northern 
New Zealand, had winged its way from the legendary 
Hawaiki — whither the spirits of the departed are 
borne — and was hovering over a forest in Northern 
France where worthy descendants of the tribes 
had come to engage in a friendly contest with men 
from those two great overseas dominions — Canada 
and Australia. 

Heke was of our time, yet he remembered the 
day when the Maori felled his tree by fire and 

189 



igo LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

fashioned his long canoe with the implements of the 
Stone Age. And now what a change ! The Maori, 
whose fathers only a few generations ago used the 
stone adze, and whose ancestors could not be con- 
quered by British soldiers, is here helping his former 
foes in the greatest war of all the ages, and, in an 
interlude, meeting them and beating them in the 
forest at their own game. As young Rawiri and 
his men — stripped to the singlet, their great brown 
biceps showing, and pleasant smiles revealing fine 
teeth — stood, axe in hand, each beside his tree 
awaiting the signal to begin, one could not but 
remember the heroic spirit of their noble ancestors. 

We left the hard pave of a road leading to the 
front, and turned into a shady lane going right 
into the heart of one of those delightful forests 
that add charm to the flat lands of French Flanders. 
The scene was one in which the old Maori warriors 
would have delighted — the spaciousness of the 
forest, the noble trees, the songs of the birds, the 
perfume of wild flowers, and, better still, the scent 
of battle in the air. At intervals the boom of a 
distant gun broke in upon the singing of the birds, 
the chiming of church bells, and the purring of a 
forest sawmill. 

We had an Australian band that played good 
music, though, as some one remarked, its members 
were not bandsmen but miners. There were present 
English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh. French Cana- 
dians talked to each other in French, and in the 
middle of a conversation would switch off into Eng- 



AN INTERLUDE IN WAR 191 

lish. A French " bucheron," seated on a fallen tree 
beside an English War Correspondent, was saying 
to him — no doubt with memories of his own recent 
defeat in these same woods : " Ah ! these Colonials, 
they are not good axemen ; they waste too much 
timber." A Canadian with a Yankee drawl and 
some swagger was asking for " real trees." These 
trees, he said, were only saplings ! That was before 
the contest, and he had perhaps never heard of the 
giant kauri in the forests of Northern New Zealand. 
Could he but see those forests, he would no doubt 
have to admit that a kauri is " some tree." Later, 
a critical Australian, watching this same swaggering 
axeman hacking not too skilfully at a hard elm, 
was heard to remark with caustic humour that he 
could do better with a knife and fork ! 

A very young English officer beside me was in- 
terested in the New Zealanders. " I hear there are 
a lot of awful blackguards among them," he said. 
I made a noncommittal reply : he had evidently 
mistaken me for an Englishman. He wondered 
if the Maoris talked English ! I assured him that 
they did, better possibly than he or I, and that 
quite likely there were among them several with 
University degrees. He presumed they were good 
at games. I told him they had earned some fame 
at " rugger," that they played cricket fairly well, 
and that a Maori had carried off the New Zealand 
Golf Championship. " Are you with the New 
Zealanders ? " he asked, looking me up and down. 
" Yes," I replied, " I am a New Zealander." Then 



192 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

the conversation languished somewhat, and with 
all due modesty I assumed that my friend was 
thinking he might have been misinformed about 
my countrymen. After all he was a very young 
officer, and, no doubt, as brave as his forefathers 
who ventured forth in the crusades or who fought 
at Blenheim or Almanza. And one felt certain 
that he would be just as ready to die in a ditch in 
Flanders, maintaining, to the last gasp, the honour 
of the family name. All the same one could not 
help recalling the lines of our English poet-seer — 

What do they know of England 
Who only England know ? 

But this war and these meetings under alien 
skies are doing us all good, and are giving us a better 
understanding of each other, with the inevitable 
result that in Government, and commerce, in the 
arts of peace and war, the Motherland and her loyal 
Dominions will be drawn yet closer together for 
mutual welfare and protection. 

Meantime the axemen are waiting beside their 
trees : a shrill whistle gives the signal to commence, 
and immediately the chips begin to fly. Canada 
has three teams, Australia two, and New Zealand 
one — the latter selected from the few hundred 
Maoris who are with the Pioneer Battalion. There 
are three men in a team, and three trees have to be 
felled by each team. Any one man in the group 
may help to fell any of the three trees. Thus when 
one man has felled his tree he rushes to the assistance 
of one of his comrades, till towards the finish there 



AN INTERLUDE IN WAR 193 

are usually three men hacking away at the last 
tree. The lots of three trees average in circumfer- 
ence 5 metres 50 centimetres, and the wood is 
hard. The Maoris have drawn a set of trees the 
average of which is above all the others, but the 
difference is not great. It is fair to add that the 
Maoris, having been at work in the forest for some 
little time, are in slightly better condition than the 
other axemen. One of the Canadian teams chopped 
first, but it was clear to experienced bushmen that 
they would have no chance against the dusky war- 
riors from the Antipodes. The Australians were 
an unknown quantity. Their first team shaped 
well. They beat the Canadians easily. The crowd 
were evidently very interested in the Maori axemen. 
Unperturbed by the interest they were exciting, the 
three young men remained standing silently, axe 
in hand, each beside his tree, and when the whistle 
sounded they went to work with fine swinging blows, 
each stroke falling within the smallest fraction of 
an inch of the one before, just as a perfect golfer 
might swing his club, and, hitting on the exact 
spot, send his ball flying well and truly from the tee. 
The " scarf e " left as the gap in the tree widened 
was almost as if it had been cut with a saw — with 
such accuracy did the blows from the keen swinging 
axes fall. The first tree came crashing to the ground, 
to an accompaniment of cheers, in six minutes. 
It was a tree 1 metre 45 centimetres in circumfer- 
ence. The second tree fell in seven minutes. At 
the last tree — the biggest in any of the groups — the 



194 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

three Maoris were now all plying their axes in style. 
In 9 minutes 40 seconds it, too, had fallen, the three 
trees thus having been brought down in 22 minutes 
40 seconds. This was a record that, evidently, it 
would be difficult to excel, and as a matter of fact 
none of the other teams approached it. The results 
were — 

Min. Sec. 
New Zealand . . . . 22 40 

Australia . . . . 31 8 

Canada . . . . . 45 22 

Following this contest there was a log-chopping 
test won by an Australian, with a Maori second. 
It was almost a dead heat. In a cross-cut sawing 
competition, a Canadian pair just managed to beat 
a Maori team by about a second. The prize for the 
best axemanship was won by a Maori. 

Thus ended a competition that will perhaps be 
memorable in the annals of warfare. A day or two 
before, in a village only a few miles away, an Aus- 
tralian General was wounded and an Australian 
doctor blown to bits by a German high explosive 
shell. Yet here we were, with competitors from 
our widely-scattered Dominions, calmly carrying 
out in the midst of idyllic surroundings this strange 
contest. Under the circumstances it was an event 
such as perhaps only the British could have con- 
ceived. One of my last impressions of it was a 
glimpse of the Maoris grouped for a photograph 
by the Baronne from a neighbouring chateau. She 
will have an interesting picture. Thousands of 



AN INTERLUDE IN WAR 195 

miles from their ancestral home, here they were, 
ready and willing, in forest or trench, to strike a 
blow for the honour of their native land and of 
Mother England. Yes, of a surety the spirit of 
Heke, who time and again cut down the flagpole, 
and of old Rewi, who when asked to surrender 
said he would fight on for ever and ever, remains 
with young Rawini and his men as, smiling, sweating 
and victorious, they lean upon their axes beside the 
fallen elm — a pygmy compared with their own giant 
kauri — in a forest in Northern France. The native 
New Zealander again had proved his prowess in a 
new field, far from his home, just as he had done in 
that desperate night attack on Gallipoli when, with 
empty magazine and fixed bayonet, he helped to clear 
the foothills of the hostile Turks, and to pave the 
way for the memorable attack on Chunuk Bair. 



FIVE MEN FROM LONDON 

A CONCERT PARTY AT THE FRONT 

Five old men from London Town, 

Rather weak to break a lance, 
Still can wander up and down 

Thro' the stricken fields of France, 
Still with song and story can 
Touch the heart-strings of the man 
Who for honour's sake will give 
His red blood that Right may live. 

Cheer them on their forward way : 
Right, not Might, shall win the day. 

SEVEN Anzacs, including the driver and the 
jolly Padre, who was stout and occupied 
much room, crowded into a 20 h.p. car and landed in 
an old Flemish town that was still standing, com- 
paratively uninjured, near the front. Passing a 
church dating from the fourteenth century, and 
the Hotel de Ville with a belfry of only a century 
later, they were on historic ground. On a hill not 
far away there had been a citadel in Roman times. 
There battles had raged and sieges endured. About 
that hill Philip IV of France had fought, and, after 
him, Philip of Valois, the Duke of Orleans, and the 
Prince of Orange. 

196 



FIVE MEN FROM LONDON 197 

In a great tent, bedecked with flags and lit with 
shaded electric lights, we found two thousand men 
and officers assembled — among them a General and 
a Scottish Earl. A blue haze from at least a thou 
sand cigarettes and pipes was slowly rising to the 
roof — an incense from all the blends and brands of 
all the tobaccos of the British Empire, Egypt, 
and America. 

Every seat in the tent was occupied and there 
was a fringe of standing men at the sides. A film 
filled in a few minutes. Then an elderly, grey- 
headed man appeared. He was the pianist of the 
Concert Company, and, briefly and amusingly, he 
gave us an inkling of what was in store for us. 
There was in addition a violinist, a tenor, a baritone, 
and a comic man. These five formed what was 
called the " Lena Ashwell Firing Line Concert 
Party." Similar Concert Companies, arranged by 
Miss Lena Ashwell and supported by generous 
donors, have been touring behind the lines in France 
and Flanders. This particular company had actu- 
ally given a concert well within the range of the 
German guns. 

The violinist played well, the tenor sang delight- 
fully, the baritone almost " brought down the tent," 
especially with a famous, rollicking West Country 
song in dialect. The funny man was really funny, 
and sang, and told stories, till the tent was filled 
with jolly laughter. There was no woman's voice 
in that entertainment. All who listened were 
warriors who had been in or were about to go into 



198 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

the trenches. Their strong, determined faces and 
their big frames gave no indication of any degeneracy 
in the British race. 

There were officers and men from almost every 
part of our great Empire, and even Britons from 
neutral countries still farther afield. The Y.M.C.A. 
man who was " running the show " was a Canadian, 
whom a few years ago we had known as an enthusi- 
astic worker in Wellington, New Zealand. He 
told us that only a few days before he was waiting 
at a railway crossing when two New Zealand Artil- 
lerymen dashed up and gave him a hearty greeting. 
They were two of his boys from the Wellington 
Y.M.C.A. ! London is no longer the meeting-place 
of the Empire. Marvellous to relate it has been 
shifted to Northern France. 

And, at a time when our men have fought glori- 
ously in the North Sea, we of the Army do not forget 
that this has been made possible through the might 
and courage of the British Navy. Are we down- 
hearted ? No ! The glorious deeds of the Battle 
Cruiser Squadron come across the waters like a 
trumpet call urging us to still greater deeds on land. 
To hear those two thousand men cheering British 
song and story close up to the lines in Northern 
France, and listen afterwards to their full-throated 
paean of " God save our gracious King," was 
indeed inspiring. Could the War Lord have turned 
for a moment from the remains of his shattered 
fleet at Wilhelmshaven and glimpsed this scene 



FIVE MEN FROM LONDON 199 

in the Y.M.C.A. tent, his proud boastings of " vic- 
tory " might at least have been modified. 

Two things struck one at this concert — the intense 
silence in which the men listened, and the wonderful 
enthusiasm of their applause at the end of a song 
or a series of stories. 

Many of us had not heard such a concert since 
the war began, and the songs and tunes carried 
our thoughts across the seas to our homes in Mother 
England, and, in some cases, many thousands of 
miles farther. 

As the great tent slowly emptied after the National 
Anthem, and we went our several ways in the long 
summer twilight of Northern France, one and all 
felt the better for hearing the old English songs and 
the English music once again. 



THE RAIDERS 

AN hour's ride in a motor-car brought us to a 
Brigade Headquarters soon after eleven at 
night by the summer clock. We found ourselves 
in a spacious room in a big house. Even a City 
magnate might be proud to have such a room for 
his office. Obviously this had been the home of 
some rich man. One wondered what had become 
of him — what had become of his family, and what 
of his wealth. In the iron grate a bright wood 
fire was blazing — such a fire as the man and his 
wife and his sons and daughters might have been 
sitting about in this rather chilly midsummer's 
night. In place of the master of the house one saw 
a Brigadier in khaki standing pensive in front of the 
fire. My thoughts flew back to a gloomy dug-out 
where last I had seen him under fire on Gallipoli 
during a rather critical stage of the great evacuation. 
The transformation seemed almost impossible — un- 
real ! 

At a table sat two signallers, one with a telephone 
strapped to his ear. At another table beside 
another instrument sat an artillery officer, smoking 

200 



THE RAIDERS 201 

a pipe. He was in touch with Artillery Headquar- 
ters and with the batteries. But for his khaki and 
his medal ribbons he might have been a young 
stockbroker awaiting news of a deal in Consols. 

The bombardment had already commenced. It 
had broken in upon the silence of the night with an 
awful suddenness. Lurid flashes lit up the sky. 
The loud reports of guns, the roar of shells tearing 
through the air, the crunch of high explosive made 
a noise that would have been terrifying to unaccus- 
tomed ears. It was as the noise of several thunder- 
storms rolling in a grand cadence among the moun- 
tains. Yet there was not a great number of batteries 
engaged. One wondered what it must be like at 
Verdun ! Almost at once the din was increased 
by the booming of enemy guns and the crash and 
crunch of their high explosive. At intervals, break- 
ing in upon the resounding boom of the guns, came 
the rat-tat-tat of the machine guns beating their 
devil's tattoo that meant a hail of lead on path and 
parapet. 

In the big room there was an air of tense expec- 
tancy. A man looked at his watch and said, 
"They've started now." A buzz on the telephone 
and there arrived a message announcing the fact. 
Then there came another strained wait. Something 
had gone wrong with the advanced signals. 

The officer in the room takes up the instrument 
and asks why there is no word. " Go out yourself 
and see," he telephones, at the same time asking 
the man at the other end to leave his companion in 



202 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

the signal dug-out. Presently the Brigadier is 
called to the instrument. Some men have come 
in and there is news. We listen to one end of 
the conversation amidst the roar of the guns 
and the noise of the shells sweeping past. " Yes ! 
Yes ! " he says. " You did ! " " How many ? " 
" Two ! " " Quite right ! Quite right ! " Intui- 
tively we know what has happened. A Major from 
Battalion Headquarters makes a significant gesture 
with his hand. 

Another pause. Then more messages. The anx- 
iety now is for our own men. How many of them 
will get back. The telephone rings frequently now, 
and much information — somewhat scrappy, it is true 
— comes from the firing line. " Thirty-two men 
in ! " " Forty-eight men in ! — some are wounded." 
" All in but one ! " That one is a young Lieutenant 
who though wounded early in the advance continued 
to lead his men. Another tense wait, and then 
the welcome news, "All in ! " 

At midnight our guns cease firing as quickly as 
they commenced. The enemy guns carry on a 
desultory bombardment, that gradually dies down. 
At last there is comparative silence, broken soon 
by the haunting sound of the gas sirens, somewhat 
faint in the distance, more insistent in our own 
sector, and then growing fainter again as the sirens 
farther down the line take up the alarum. The 
guns of another division can now be heard booming 
in the distance. It is probably that division that 



THE RAIDERS 203 

the Hun is endeavouring to gas. One after another 
our own battalions report " Gas attack uncon- 
firmed " in their area. But there was gas that 
night farther up the line. Motoring home between 
two and three in the morning we encountered it 
some miles away from the spot at which it came 
hissing from the German trenches. The acrid fumes 
of the chlorine caught us in the throat and made our 
eyes smart. In the villages men had risen from their 
beds on hearing the alarum. Our driver, a laconic 
Scot, rolling his R's delightfully, remarked, " There's 
a lot o' them oot in their shirt-tails the nicht." 
The cavalry and the drivers of the convoys had 
donned their masks, and looked for all the world 
like a column of goggle-eyed divers on horseback. 
Next morning the crops along the road were blighted 
by this inhuman poison of modern warfare. There 
may be some things that posterity will forgive 
the German people for, but not, surely, for this 
fiendish method of killing men. 

At 1 a.m. the air is once more in travail with the 
roar of guns. An anxious inquiry from the trenches 
comes down to us, but the Brigade Major replies 
cheerily, " No, it's our guns. We're giving them one 
minute of the best." And sure enough we were. 
The gunners, warmed to their work, seemed to be 
going for all they were worth. The enemy planted 
a few shells on our subsidiary lines, but generally 
he seemed rather depressed this night. Perhaps he 
had sent some of his guns away post haste where 
he thought they might be more needed. The 



204 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

Russian bear was coming back to his haunts of a 
year ago ! And there might be other happenings. 

All this we knew of in the big room of the rich 
man's house. We also knew that we ourselves were 
not immune from enemy shells. Only a few days 
before I had seen blood running on the pavements 
of this same place, and shelling that had killed and 
wounded harmless civilians, including children. 
There was the rent of shrapnel in the very room 
in which we sat. 

But out there in the trenches and in No-man's- 
land they were in the thick of it, and things were 
happening. After the first ten minutes of intensive 
bombardment and the suspense of it all, the raiders, 
in prearranged formation, dashed across the inter- 
vening space where the weeds and grass grow rank 
and the earth is pocked and pitted as if with a foul 
disease. At that moment some of our guns switched 
off right and left, and others " lifted " to form a 
protecting barrage against an enemy counter-attack. 
But before they had gone twenty yards the leader 
of the foray had fallen mortally wounded. His 
lieutenant fell with him, and they were left lying 
there while the others dashed on. The signallers, 
failing to unwind their wire quickly enough, could 
not keep up with the others. The assaulting parties 
moved on through a gap cut in the German wire 
by our trench mortars, and were soon in the enemy's 
trench. One of the officers, a lieutenant, though 
wounded in the chest and shoulder, carried on to the 



THE RAIDERS 205 

end. He remained in the enemy's trench until all 
the men were withdrawn, and he was the last man 
to reach our own lines. 

Meantime our men had gone bombing the dug- 
outs up and down the trench. They found four 
Germans dead in the trench, and bayoneted two 
moie. The others had evidently beaten a precipi- 
tate retreat the moment the shelling began. Our 
splendid artillery fire undoubtedly accounted for 
many more. The German trench was battered 
beyond recognition, and in places it was altogether 
swept away. Clear proof here of what we can do 
if the British workman will only give us guns and 
shells. But if he insists on taking holidays he 
cannot give us all we need. The men at the front 
take no holidays. Even on Sundays there is 
no holiday. One day is like another — hard 
work, and wounds, and death ! There is such a 

similarity that at times we lose the count of time. 
***** 

In the early hours of the morning a number of 
the men came trooping into the tapestried room 
bringing with them their booty, by means of which 
we could identify the regiments opposite us. They 
were a cheery crowd to have so lately come through 
the doors of death. With blackened faces, from 
which eyes and teeth gleamed, they looked for all 
the world like a dress rehearsal of a Christy Minstrel 
show. As they lined up and answered to the roll 
call one almost expected to hear " Massa Johnson " 
asking his brother corner-man some old-time conun- 



206 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

drum. Then they were met with a hail of ques- 
tions, and they cheerfully replied. Some one asked 
if it was exciting. " It was when we started," re- 
plied a sturdy non-com., smiling through his burnt 
cork. " There was a sapper next to me with a few 
pounds of gun-cotton on him ! " 

Questions having been asked and answered, 
we sat down at 2 a.m. to a supper of ham and eggs 
and hot coffee. Our thoughts were a good deal with 
the wounded who could not join us, and mostly 
with the brave young leader who had failed to see 
the fruition of his work. It was a small affair as war 
goes nowadays, but in it he had bravely done his 
duty for the Motherland that he had possibly never 
seen. Next morning he had passed beyond all the 
sights and sounds of war. 

The night raid is no new thing, but its evolution 
from a tribal affray or the foray of a clan to a grim 
struggle of international importance is a quite 
recent development. And the plan of the raid of 
to-day must differ from the plan of the raid of to- 
morrow. Indeed, if you are to deceive the wily 
Boche, you must be continually varying the details 
of your raids. The enemy must never know what 
is in your mind ; he must not realize what is in 
store for him. 

The Anzacs — and probably the British too — go 
through a course of systematic training, so that on 
the eve of a raid they are not only physically fit but 
thoroughly schooled in every ruse and detail of its 



THE RAIDERS 207 

organization. The extent to which details are 
thought out may be indicated by one small matter. 
Officers and men taking part in a raid are now sup- 
plied with chewing-gum ! Why chewing-gum ? It 
appears that the tension of waiting during a furious 
bombardment in the darkness before going over the 
parapet produces in some of the bravest men a state 
of nervous strain that leads to coughing. Once 
you have crawled through No-man's-land and are 
beginning to feel your way beneath a hail of shrapnel 
and machine-gun bullets towards the gap that 
you hope your guns have made in the enemy's wire, 
preparatory to hopping his parapet and engaging 
in a deadly hand-to-hand struggle, a cough might 
cost you your life. If you could smoke you would 
not cough, but even the glow from a cigarette-end 
might betray your position, and your career might 
come to a sudden and inglorious end at the hands 
of some Saxon sniper or Bavarian machine-gunner. 
For that reason the pipe and the cigarette are 
banned, and chewing-gum, which answers all the 
requirements, has been substituted. 

It is a strange sight to see men in these days of 
machines going literally into the jaws of death, 
dribbling, in clear daylight, through No-man's- 
land, a football from the playing fields of England. 
What other nation in all the world would think of 
that ? And yet there is method in their supposed 
madness. It gets the men quickly up to the enemy's 
line, and so long as the ball is at their toe, they 
will have little concern for the bullets. Men are 



208 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

actually detailed in orders to dribble the ball along, 
and if these men fall, others will take their places. 
In any case it is as effective and far more sporting 
than the dope given to the German infantry before 
a charge — not indeed that many of the German 
soldiers require a dope, for they are brave even as 
our own men. But if this dribbling of a football 
through a hail of shot and shell is one of the strange 
sights of modern war, it is surely no less strange to 
see a hundred stalwart Anzacs with hands and 
faces blackened, armed to the teeth, and with jaws 
vigorously working away at American chewing-gum ! 
It is one other way in which the United States 
of America has helped us in the great cause of 
humanity. I can only hope that in disclosing the 
plot I shall not be the humble instrument of creating 
another international situation and a further series 
of notes between President Wilson and the German 
Chancellor ! Yet there is no saying what problems 
our German friends may not evolve out of the publi- 
cation of the fact that British soldiers have been 
indulging in the practice of hopping the German 
parapets with American chewing-gum in their 
mouths. 

In their early raids the Germans took with them 
into our trenches long sharp-bladed knives and 
strange-looking knobkerries with chunks of iron at 
the business end. We were thus driven to the 
devising of similar implements of destruction. In 
these raids the Germans, brave as they are, certainly 
did not get any change out of the Anzacs, but the 



THE RAIDERS 209 

Anzacs never bore them any malice. So long as 
the Germans played the game, our men played the 
game also. 

The captor and the captive in these raids make 
always an interesting study. Memories crowd in 
upon one, from Egypt and Gallipoli to Armentieres, 
but it would need a special chapter to do them 
justice. One scene comes vividly before my 
memory. In the darkness we walked along the 
roads and through the fields to a trench within our 
lines. Meantime the bright flares were shooting 
skyward all along the line, indicating clearly the 
bend of the salient we were holding. They burst 
with beautiful effect, illuminating the scene, the 
German flares a little brighter than our own, and 
when the meteor-like flashes had died away, the 
darkness became blacker than before. We reached 
a dug-out in which we found a general, a colonel, 
some other officers, and the telephonists patiently 
waiting the course of events. The conversation 
in such situations becomes desultory and even in- 
congruous. The ring of a telephone acts as an 
almost immediate silencer, for the situation is tense, 
and the actors in this great drama of darkness and 
uncertainty are known to many of us. Some of them 
we know we shall never see again. Others will 
come back with wounds, some serious, some slight. 
In our crowded dug-out the spasmodic attempts 
at gaiety do not altogether conceal the tense anxiety 
that is felt. It is a positive relief when a man, 
looking at his watch, announces that the bombard- 

p 



210 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

ment is due in half a minute. One counts the re- 
maining seconds. Then, with a simultaneous burst 
of sound, the guns crash and thunder in unison. 
Risking a splinter or a direct hit, we leave the dug- 
out, and, scrambling on to a mound behind the 
trench, watch the splendid scene. The roar of the 
guns behind and in front, the tearing noise of the 
shells through the air overhead and on either side, 
the loud reports with which they burst at the end 
of their journey, the dull explosions of bombs, the 
crack of rifles, and the rat-tat-tat -ing of the machine 
guns, make a veritable orgy of sound. But it is the 
flashing illumination of the guns and the bursting 
shells and bombs and flares that interests us most. 
Scraggy arms of shell-torn trees stand revealed in 
all their sad semi-nakedness under the flash of flare 
or high explosive. Some are headless, mere shat- 
tered trunks with the sap of their former strong 
life drying within their attenuated, broken bodies. 
Others point a beckoning hand across the trench. 
But always they retreat again into the gloom of 
night out of which they came. Occasionally a flash 
reveals the ruin of some farm-house, the crumbling 
walls of which may even be a bit of our trench. 
Gone are the farmer and the farmer's wife, and his 
merry children who used to string a daisy chain in 
these scarred, shell-pitted fields that once were 
trim meadows, where sheep and cattle grazed con- 
tentedly. Now the grass and the weeds are growing 
rank in all the narrow battle zone ; and back of 
the lines, and in between, the earth is pitted with the 



THE RAIDERS 211 

foul disease of war. An exploding shell unearths 
the bones of some British soldier buried eighteen 
months ago. The light from a star-shell reveals a 
cross on which we read " An Unknown German lies 
here." Then there are the still living trees as 
well as those dead and dying. These, on more 
fortunate ground, are seen in silhouette against 
the sudden brilliance of the flares. For a moment 
they come in bold relief out of the darkness ; in a 
moment they go back into the mirk from whence 
they came. For a full hour all these things appear 
and reappear. Then the guns " lift," and continue 
their destructive work farther back. 

The scene changes. The first of the captors with 
his prisoner appears. They are quite a friendly 
pair. " Don't shoot me : I am a married man ! " 
said the German, when he found the burly Australian 
getting to close quarters with him in the trench. 
" You're all right, sonny ; you just come along with 
me," the Australian had said, patting his prisoner 
on the shoulder. He talked excellent English, 
this German. He had been a clerk in a London 
office. He even descended to the vernacular. 
" Bloody clever ! your raid," he said, " bloody 
clever ! " And so it was, for our men, by a clever 
ruse, had completely deceived the Germans as to the 
point of their trenches that it was proposed to attack. 

In the dug-out to which the prisoner was taken 
his letters and papers were examined by a young 
Englishman formerly an electric engineer in Berlin ! 



212 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

Such things are possible in war, and Germany is not 
possessed of all the talents, and all the positions, 
even in Berlin, however much we British may be 
in the habit of crediting her with them. The 
prisoner did not seem to mind much about his letters 
or his money. What he wanted most was the 
photographs of his wife and children that he carried 
with him in his pocket-book into the trenches. His 
wife was a pretty young woman, and his children 
were beautiful — a boy and a girl. Of course these 
pictures were promptly handed back to him. Being 
British, we even gave him back his money, though a 
young Australian officer cast longing eyes upon a 
one-mark note — a system of currency that, with 
iron, and even paper coins, for some time now has 
been used in a vain attempt to upkeep the German 
credit. The one-mark note and the iron money — ■ 
a ten-pfennig piece — were afterwards purchased 
from him, at their full value, as souvenirs. The 
Australian soldiers even gave him their cigarettes 
and their own food and tea. One wondered how 
the enemy would have conducted a similar incident. 
But there is no longer any need to wonder. The 
taking away of the young men and women of Lille a 
few months ago, and the killing of Captain Fryatt 
in cold blood, indicate only too plainly to what 
depths the German mind and method can still de- 
scend. The Captain of the Great Eastern Company's 
liner also had a wife and children, and he was, 
unlike the German soldier in the raided trench, not 
fair game. " Don't kill me ; I am a married man ! " 



THE RAIDERS 213 

is a sufficient password to reach the heart of one 
of our Australian soldiers, whose qualities the Ger- 
mans have endeavoured to besmirch in lying words. 
But such a password, even from an innocent non- 
combatant, has no weight with the German Em- 
peror ! 

* * * * * 

The Maori, who is naturally a born raider, has 
for some reason or other been turned into a pioneer, 
but he wants to get back into the fighting. He 
has original ideas about raiding, a form of warfare 
that for generations was practised by his forefathers 
in intertribal warfare. The old spirit is still strong 
in the Maori, and the love for the weapons of the 
Stone Age remains with him. The jade mere of his 
ancestor, cut and polished with great labour in the 
Stone Age, that, with him, was not so long ago, he 
still knows how to handle, and with the taiha he 
could no doubt still deal a deadly blow. But there 
is no jade in Flanders or Northern France, so the 
Maori has set himself to fashion the old weapons 
anew. He has obtained billhooks from which he 
has filed the curving top and then sharpened the 
rounded end to a razor edge. This is the modern 
equivalent of the mere of his ancestors ; it is per- 
haps an improvement upon it, for it will be more 
effective. 

Among my friends in the Maori contingent is a 
doctor who had a brilliant college career. I believe 
his materia-medica paper surprised the professor who 
examined it. It was the best he had ever dealt 



214 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

with. This doctor, after doing fine work at the 
front in Gallipoli, has now exchanged the lancet 
for the sword, and is in the ranks of the combatants. 
When I last saw him he was giving a warlike band, 
whose faces did not require any burnt cork, a 
lesson in anatomy, and the least intelligent of his 
volunteers now knows where, in close combat, he 
can find the sub-clavian or the carotid artery or the 
temporal of the thickest-skulled and toughest- 
skinned Boche that ever stepped into a trench in 
Northern France. In addition to these new cuts 
and thrusts, the Maori can still deal the effective 
blows that the earlier pioneers brought with them 
from far Hawaiiki, the mythological home of their 
fathers. The temple-hit was well known to the 
Maori of the olden time. His hit was made with an 
idea of severing the temporal artery, and it used to 
end with a screw that sometimes took off the top 
of the enemy's head. All this may sound somewhat 
terrible if you don't know your anatomy. Really it 
is one of the most humane ways of putting your 
enemy hors de combat, a method in comparison with 
which the German gassing is diabolical in the ex- 
treme. Some of the famous greenstone meres with 
generations of history behind them are to be found 
in the museums and private collections of New 
Zealand and England. And one wonders if the 
new mere, used against the invaders of Northern 
France and the despoilers of Belgium, will find an 
honoured place beside the old historic weapons of a 
chivalrous foe. 



LAUNCHING THE GREAT 
ATTACK 

IT is the first of July, 191 6 — a day that will live in 
history. After months of careful preparation 
and wonderful organization behind the lines, a great 
British offensive has been launched against the 
Germans in France. Unexpectedly the French are 
pushing next to us north and south of the Somme. 
The Germans no doubt thought they had finished 
them at Verdun. The surprise was all the more 
effective. With a dash and a determination for 
which they were ever famous the splendid French 
troops in this great event have been remarkably 
successful and have won new laurels. 

The scope of this combined offensive is as great 
as it is important. Apart from the fighting, the 
traffic along the roads is in itself an amazing sight. 
Its control is equally wonderful. Big motor-lorries 
by the thousand pass and repass in long columns. 
Motor-cars, carrying staff officers, dash along the 
roads. Motor-cyclists flash by. Great guns with 
motor-tractors on caterpillar wheels crawl across the 

215 



216 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

fields like Saurian monsters. Ammunition columns 
advance toward the firing line, and motor-ambu- 
lances, their red crosses half hidden in a coating of 
dust, running smoothly and slowly, return laden 
with the human wreckage from the battlefields. 
High above the cornfields ugly " sausage " balloons 
strain at the thin ropes of steel that hold them cap- 
tive, the observers, sometimes sick with the con- 
tinuous swaying motion, watch through their glasses 
the slow swing of the battle pendulum down below. 
Higher still, the fast battle-planes gleam in the 
bright sunlight, or, like dark birds of evil omen, 
remain for a time silhouetted against a silver cloud. 
In the night time streams of troops march along 
the dusty roads or leave the trail of a column of 
fours across the clover and the wheat fields — a trail 
that remains visible for days. It is all very wonder- 
ful — amazing ! 

Day and night without intermission, but with 
varying degrees of intensity, the preliminary bom- 
bardment went on. In many places it blew the 
German trenches to bits. It changed, as if with a 
magician's wand, already battered French villages 
held by German soldiery into heaps of red rubble. 
It played such havoc with the German lines of 
communication that it was with difficulty the enemy 
got food and water up to the firing line. Wounded 
and unwounded German prisoners, many hundreds 
of whom we saw, had in their faces that grey, scared 
look that told its own tale of torment of mind, of 
bodily fatigue, and of shock endured. With a 



LAUNCHING THE GREAT ATTACK 217 

haunting remembrance of the ordeal, they said it 
was terrible. They were a mixed lot — not, of 
course, seen at their best — but among them were 
numbers of fine strapping fellows. Many admitted 
that Germany could not now win — the most they 
hoped for was a draw — but in any case the war 
could not last much longer. One thing was certain, 
namely, that their moral had been shaken. Few 
there were who were not pleased to be prisoners, 
fewer still who, given their liberty, would care to 
go back. 

Day and night we watched the bombardment 
from a vantage point that overlooked the battle- 
fields between the Somme and the Ancre. By 
day it was a spectacle of pillars of smoke and dust — 
by night a scene of strange glowing lights and 
flashing illuminations. And, all the time, the grand 
arpeggio of the guns ! The intensity of sound 
varied with the region from which one listened. 
The air was tremulous with the throbbing pulsations 
of hundreds of guns of different calibres. It was 
altogether different from the bombardments in 
Gallipoli where the guns of the ships boomed across 
the sea and our own cannon reverberated amongst 
the hills and dales. It was different also from the 
thunder of the New Zealand batteries further north, 
where an intense bombardment crashes and echoes 
in the town like a great thunderstorm. Here in 
this open, gently-rolling country it is not a thunder 
but rather a continuous pulsation of sound beating 
upon the ear so quickly that the beats become 



218 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

uncountable. And there are strange variations 
in the waves of battle sounds according as they are 
affected by configuration of country. Currents 
and pools of stagnant air also play their incompre- 
hensible parts. The booming of the bigger guns is 
said to have been heard in England ! Here they 
are merged in the one gigantic, continuous pulsation. 
It is as if one were listening to the heart-beats of 
the world itself — to the pulsing of a great troubled 
heart in which the rhythm was broken at uncertain 
intervals by the bursting of huge fifteen-inch howit- 
zer shells and the explosions of great mines packed, 
literally, with tons of ammonal. 

The volume of sound reached its maximum pitch 
when hundreds of trench mortars all along the line 
began to hurl the heavy high explosive shells to fall 
in graceful curves with terrific bursts upon German 
trench and parapet and wire entanglement. At 
last, after many months of weary waiting, the enemy 
was getting back, with compound interest, a sample 
of his own devilish devices for the destruction of 
mankind. 

At about 7.30 a.m., when our infantry attack was 
launched, when the trench mortars ceased, and the 
guns " lifted " their fire, there was a considerable 
diminution in the din which, to strained ears, had 
become so familiar. Then came the crack of rifle 
fire and the devilish tattoo of the enemy machine 
guns as our men climbed over the parapets into what 
for so long had been No-man's-land, but which in a 
few minutes now became ours. These, their staccato 



LAUNCHING THE GREAT ATTACK 219 

bursts softened by distance, came, faintly, through 
the sound of our own cannonade and the somewhat 
uncertain and hesitating barrage of the enemy 
gunners, but to practised ears they were easily 
audible. 

The grass was wet with dew and the morning 
mists hung low in the valley and on the slopes 
beyond where the death-struggle of a million men 
was now begun in real earnest. The smoke and 
dust of battle mingled with this haze and blotted 
out the distant landscape. Gradually, as the morn- 
ing wore on, the visibility increased. And presently 
out of the thick haze we could see down below in the 
valley, slowly emerging, the toppling golden Virgin 
on the steeple of the church at Albert, bent at an 
angle by the German shelling, face downwards, but 
still holding in her outstretched hands the infant 
Christ. Appearing thus out of the mist and the 
smoke of battle the giant figure, still held up upon 
its bent girders of iron, seemed a mute protest against 
the kultur of a cruel and destroying nation. 

From that day the great attack went on, at times 
developing into a series of battles. One would 
almost have thought that nothing could have lived 
through the hail of shell with which we battered 
the German trenches. Our own wounded, and 
officers and men whom we afterwards saw on the 
actual battlefield, smilingly confirmed the stories 
that the German prisoners had told us with haggard 
faces and still frightened eyes. Yet the pick and 
the shovel in patient toiling hands are great and 



220 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

effective adjuncts in modern war to the bayonet 
and the gun, and the enemy had used them to some 
purpose in the long months of our enforced in- 
activity. Sheltering in their deep dug-outs in trench 
and ruined village, many Germans saved themselves 
and their machine guns long after trench and parapet 
and parados had become indistinguishable the one 
from the other, and long after hamlets and villages 
had become mere heaps of red rubble. From these 
machine guns, and from German high explosive 
and shrapnel, our British soldiers met in many 
places a withering and destructive fire that might 
well have dismayed the most heroic band, the while 
it thinned their ever onward-moving ranks and 
dotted the grassy sward of No-man's-land with their 
dead. 

Yet, in spite of all this, we were now the masters 
of the vaunted German legions. On this day our 
brave soldiers feared neither man nor machine. 
They went into action with a glorious courage 
unexcelled in any war. One company actually 
started their charge dribbling footballs across No- 
man's-land ! 

As on the earth and on the sea, so in the air did we 
obtain the mastery and the initiative. For days 
now the German balloons, harried by our airmen 
with a new method of destruction, had been falling 
in flames, their observers attempting hurried de- 
scents by parachute to save their own bodies from 
fire or the swift and sudden fall. Yet all along 
the smoking line our own balloons were up, making 



LAUNCHING THE GREAT ATTACK 221 

calm survey above the battlefields. With electric 
wave and light they gave the ranges to our thunder- 
ing guns, scatheless and unalarmed. Swinging 
high above the valley of the Somme was a constella- 
tion of twenty, clear-cut against the summer blue. 
There was not one German balloon in sight. And 
no German plane dared cross our line. Yet here 
were our own planes flying low out over the German 
trenches. At times flights of half a dozen droned 
overhead, flying with deadly purpose on some 
specially destructive and hazardous mission. No 
wonder that a few days later the German squadron 
dropped a message in our lines : " Please give your 
bloody Flying Corps a rest ! " The daring of our 
Corps was indeed a sight for gods and men. 

Many gallant deeds were done in those first days 
of the great offensive, and if there were a hundred 
eyewitnesses with the most graphic pens, instead 
of only a few war correspondents, they would yet 
fail to do justice to the splendid heroism of " our 
contemptible little army." 



FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE 

THE great Battle of the Somme along an ex- 
tended front became in time a series of 
battles. Fierce fighting took place in the vicinity 
of the battered villages of Fricourt and La Boiselle 
— strong points in the German line that, for a time, 
held up our attack. This was really a battle in 
itself, and the writer had the rare good fortune to 
watch it from an adjacent slope, within close range, 
and right out in the open. It was a unique position 
from which, in such a war as this, a non-combatant 
could watch the progress of a fierce fight. Indeed, 
we were able to observe two distinct engagements 
that were going on at the same time — the final 
phase of the capture of Fricourt and the fight for the 
wood behind, and the even more gallant and desperate 
attack on La Boiselle. Well within a complete 
circle of gun fire, and even within the range of 
enemy machine guns and rifles, had they cared to 
shoot in our direction, we could follow almost every 
movement of our troops, in places even with the 
unaided eye. Both villages had been battered 
beyond recognition by our intensive initial bom- 

222 



FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE 223 

bardment, but the enemy still clung tenaciously to 
the positions. Prisoners said afterwards that they 
had been told to hold them at all costs. For superb 
gallantry in the face of great odds I had seen nothing 
to equal the storming of this position since the 
attack on Chunuk Bair, Gallipoli. 

For hours our bombardment of the enemy 
trenches and the ruins of these villages made of 
them a veritable inferno. That which was the 
German front line trench at La Boiselle had in 
places become almost a level road. Trees in the 
adjoining woods had been shot to bits, and brick 
and mortar had crumbled or disappeared in clouds 
of red dust till all the houses were shapeless ruins. 
Mametz, a village to the right, had already been 
taken, and our troops were now trying to get round 
the Fricourt wood from there, while other units 
were endeavouring to join with them round the 
opposite side. 

Gallant work was done at Mametz too. The men 
from one unit got into the German line with a 
single casualty, and were in the second line with only 
two ! One man himself took twenty prisoners. 
Other troops were not so lucky. They came up 
against machine-gun fire and were heavily bombed. 
In one spot, lying amongst the grass, in the line in 
which they were advancing, were the bodies of six 
men and a little dog — the mascot of the regiment — 
that had gone into the fight with them. One regi- 
ment had taken many prisoners and was tremen- 
dously " bucked up." Another had got it "in the 



224 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

neck " and was correspondingly depressed ; but 
each continued bravely fighting, and, in the end, the 
Germans were worsted. 

As our men advanced from the Mametz position 
to get round Fricourt Wood we watched the German 
gunners putting a long-sustained barrage of high 
explosive and some shrapnel in the hollow through 
which they had to pass, yet the men, gallantly led, 
got through. The enemy also crumped our firing 
line, but in this they were too late : our troops had 
already advanced. " Woolly Bears " that burst 
with a peculiar tearing noise were mixed with the 
other stuff. Our own shelling of the German posi- 
tion had been most effective. An officer who went 
next day in to a German redoubt that had been greatly 
strafed found it a heap of tumbled earth. Some 
cheery pioneers from a northern county were already 
at work digging a communication trench soon after 
our troops had taken the German line. Laden with 
their more peaceful implements of war and beams 
of stout timber they streamed down into the hollow 
and across to the taken position. 

When we arrived on the scene the real battle for 
La Boiselle was just beginning, and the last of the 
main German force was already in process of being 
cleared out of Fricourt. We got so close to the fight 
that, without our glasses, we could clearly see the 
troops moving into action. They streamed round 
one corner on the left of the Fricourt ruins and 
swung to the right along the edge of the wood. 
Others came up out of the hollow of the valley still 



FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE 225 

more to the left. These also advanced, but almost 
at the same time we heard the crackle of a machine 
gun, and could see that they were held up. The gun 
was hidden somewhere in the wood. Nearly all took 
shelter on the edge of a little copse at a place that 
had been Fricourt Farm. The trees of the copse 
had been torn and dismembered by our shell fire. 
They were shattered but still living forms, slowly 
bleeding to death. 

Still farther round on the left, on the crest of a 
ridge overlooking a chateau set in a beautiful wood, 
was all that remained of La Boiselle after our guns 
had fiercely bombarded it. It was very, very little, 
but such ruined villages, however heavily bombarded, 
can still shelter an enemy that has made deep dug- 
outs. In these, invariably, both men and machine 
guns are saved, and such positions take a great deal 
of clearing up in an advance. In one case our men 
went right through a village — so quick was their 
onrush — and afterwards the enemy came out of 
cellars and dug-outs and fought, though, against 
the splendid valour of our troops, they failed to save 
the position. Many of the Germans who remained 
in that village were killed and wounded. The others 
quickly transformed themselves into " Kamarads " 
and held up their hands in surrender. 

While our attacking force was sheltering at the 
end of Fricourt Wood our gunners were mercilessly 
shelling the La Boiselle position, still strongly held 
by the Germans and commanded by their artillery 
as well as by our own. Our high explosive tore the 

Q 



226 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

earth relentlessly, sending up great bursts of smoke 
and showers of earth, and the already broken brick 
walls of shop and cottage disappeared in clouds of 
dust. At intervals a big shrapnel shell would burst 
in the air, spattering the ground with its pellets and 
leaving behind it a pretty rolling cloud of light, 
greyish-green smoke. That no doubt was to catch 
any German who might take it into his head to run 
for better shelter. But all the time we watched not 
a man showed himself. So terrible was the shelling 
that one would have thought nothing could have 
lived within its zone. And for hours this ruthless 
" preparation " for our advance went on. 

Down on the left, at the corner of the wood, a 
battery of heavy guns with fine teams of black 
horses swung into action right in the open. This 
was a splendid and a cheering sight, and one unex- 
pected in this war of trench and wire and dug-out. 
More of our guns had been shifted up in the night. 
Just in front of us, in new emplacements at what 
had been the German front-line trench, there was 
a battery already established in its new emplace- 
ments. 

On the reverse slope of the Fricourt-La Boiselle 
ridge our men were nonchalantly walking about, 
and stretcher-bearers were going and coming in the 
open. Among the uniforms I noticed some of un- 
expected grey, and, looking through glasses, I saw 
that they were German, but in them were German 
prisoners. There must have been a whole company 
of them. Under the gleaming bayonets of half a 



FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE 227 

dozen guards, they were marched down the valley 
to a barbed-wire enclosure well away from the battle- 
ground. Other " Tommies " were bringing in 
prisoners in twos and threes from the captured 
trenches. At intervals, for fully half an hour, we 
watched one humorist slowly bringing in his prize. 
The prisoner seemed to be shamming and was 
reluctant to come. Apparently he thought he was 
going to his doom. There would be, at times, an 
argument in which a threatening bayonet played a 
part. An impatient and less humane man might 
have finished the argument — and the prisoner — with 
a bullet, but this " Tommy " persevered. He 
compelled the German to cross the trenches in front 
of him, and when it was his turn to clamber up the 
far side he made his prisoner stretch out his hand 
and pull him up. 

The position at Fricourt and La Boiselle continued 
to be intensely interesting. Even though our stand- 
point was so excellent, emboldened by our success, 
we ventured along a little farther to where some of 
our soldiers were lying on the yellow earth of a 
communication trench. The group constituted an 
artillery forward observation post, and was made up 
of a colonel, a major, one or two junior officers, and 
some signallers. Among them was a big, handsome 
Australian whose father had been a Broken Hill 
millionaire. When the war broke out he was in 
England, and had joined the Artillery. At 
present he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying him- 
self. 



228 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

For some hours we lay beside these men watching 
the wonderful battle spectacle and listening to 
messages coming and going over the field telephone. 
Expressions of delight alternated with orders and 
messages to and from the guns. " There's another 
blighter ! " " His hands are up ! His hands are 
up ! " " There's another in a long coat surrender- 
ing — between the Crucifix and the Poodle ! ' ' There 
was a good deal of the Crucifix and the Poodle. The 
latter turned out to be a woolly-looking tree on the 
far ridge just in front of the other German line. The 
Crucifix was a real Crucifix still standing against the 
horizon amidst a small clump of naked trees. It is 
strange how many crucifixes escape shell fire, and 
such as do are regarded by the French with super- 
stitious awe. 

Interspersed with the talk of the observers were 
phrases of a more technical kind, such as " putting 
number four gun on to Burnham Wood," or " num- 
ber three on to x 20 ak 16," " dropping twenty-five," 
or " twenty minutes left or right " as the case might 
be. The Germans were shelling our troops in a place 
these enthusiasts called Lozenge Wood — it was no 
longer a wood : it was a sand heap — and our aforesaid 
guns were now cheerfully worrying the enemy just 
over the ridge. The shells tore past us, and we 
watched them bursting over the crest. Our infantry 
had been into Crucifix trench, and others advancing 
to the further attack were now held up at the Poodle. 
The shelling was to allow them to go on. This they 
afterwards did, and by next day the whole of 



FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE 229 

Fricourt Wood was surrounded and the position 
made good. 

Another Battery Commander wished to know over 
the 'phone if he could chip in, but the officer replied, 
" No ; Major Blank's battery will do the necessary." 
It was very much as if a man were sitting in his 
office ordering a ton of coal for his household or 
arranging a deal in shares or produce. They could 
not, of course, see their own guns. Neither could 
the gunners see what they were shooting at — it was 
all done with an almost uncanny scientific accuracy 
from the map and from observation in this forward 
station. 

The position at Fricourt having been satisfactorily 
cleared up, we again turned our attention on La 
Boiselle, which was now more than ever being lashed 
with a storm of shells. Other batteries, including 
some " heavies " far back, were attending to this. 
It seemed as if the gunners had warmed to their 
work, and one could picture them stripped to the 
shirt, working with energy and enthusiasm, as shell 
after shell went tearing toward the enemy trenches. 

Their shelling was terribly accurate and dreadfully 
effective. Presently they ceased from high explo- 
sive, banged in a perfect tornado of shrapnel, and 
then suddenly " lifted." From this we knew that 
the infantry attack was on the point of being 
launched, and surely enough in a few minutes' time 
we saw the first of the men debouching from a 
shattered communication trench and creeping up 
across a still more battered German trench in the 



230 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

direction of what had been the village. Others 
followed, and soon there was a little group in a very 
exposed position waiting for their chance to go 
forward. The German gunnery at this stage of the 
battle was magnificent. The position had been 
accurately registered, and a solitary German bal- 
loon far away behind the woods of the distant 
ridge was observing. 

Looking from our grand-stand position on the 
hillside, it seemed as if no troops on God's earth 
could ever come safely through such a barrage. 
" My God ! that's pitiless shrapnel at La Boiselle," 
said the man beside me. But all the time as we 
looked British troops were passing through it. 
Raked by machine gun and rifle fire, stunned and 
blown to bits by high explosive, and pelted with 
the bursting shrapnel, many fell but none wavered. 
It was an exhibition of dauntless courage and self- 
sacrifice that one might well have risked one's own 
life to see. We did not know what troops they were 
— clerks and artisans and labourers probably, led 
by young fellows only a year or two away from the 
public schools and 'Varsities. We did not even 
trouble to ask. Sufficient for us from the distant 
lands of the Empire was it that they were British 
lads turned into soldiers in a year, and that their 
magnificent and undaunted courage was typical 
of the high moral to which " the contemptible little 
army " had attained. 

The German gunners continued to put a deadly 
barrage into the hollow on the left in an endeavour 



FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE 231 

to stop the advance. They shot also at the little 
group crouching on the white chalky rubble of a 
damaged trench where they were finding all too 
inadequate shelter. The ground was whipped with 
shrapnel and high explosive, and a German machine 
gunner who had lived through our fire now gallantly 
emerged from his shelter and began firing. Now 
there was also the crackle of rifle fire mingling with 
the reports of the guns that were shooting all 
around us, and with the noise of the bursting shells 
immediately in front. One felt very sorry for the 
little group of brave men crouching there in the 
open. Presently there was a burst of shell beside 
them and a second right over them. For a moment 
they were obliterated by the smoke and the whipped- 
up dust. When it cleared we saw man after man 
get up, and, crouching low, advance into the village 
in face of the machine-gun fire from the leafless 
wood and the ruined houses. Some seven or eight 
there were who did not move. They lay in strangely 
huddled attitudes, motionless on the light earth of 
the battered trench. Next day they were still there 
in the same positions. Death had caught them in 
the very hour of victory. But other gallant fellows 
came on through the pitiless hail of German shrapnel 
to take their places. They came singly and in twos 
and threes. Some dropped, but there was no 
flinching, no turning back. It was all very, very 
sad, but finely inspiriting, and it made the pulses 
thrill. One felt proud to be of the breed. In this 
manner did we gain our footing in La Boiselle. 



232 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

The boom of the guns and the crash and crump 
of bursting shells continued, and our droning battle 
planes, wheeling overhead, surveyed the scene with 
an immeasurable scorn for the German shrapnel. 
The open trench beside which we lay was like a 
wound in the meadow. The gentle grassy slope 
above and below was gay with red poppies, blue 
cornflowers, and white daisies — the colours of 
England and of France — swallows and butterflies 
were flitting about in the clear sunshine, and, in the 
blue above, a soaring lark was putting all his soul 
into his song. 



GOLFERS FROM THE SEA 

IF you have been squatting on the sea bottom 
not a mile from Heligoland for two days and 
have been fired at and chased and otherwise inhos- 
pitably received, you naturally crave for some form 
of recreation. That explains why the Z. 77 is vainly 
endeavouring to call up H.M.S. Outrageous, and 
also why her signalman is muttering cutting remarks 
about the somnolence of signalmen on bigger ships. 
From the vitals of the submarine comes a voice. 
" Got 'em yet, Evans ? " " 'E's just woke up, 
sir," says Evans, and proceeds to spell out a message 
with the aid of two large semaphore flags. This is 
the message : " Lieutenant X., Outrageous, — Will 
give you two bisques and knock spots off you. — 
Tubby." 

Half-way through the receiving signalman on the 
big ship became wildly excited. " And 'im twelve 
years in the Navy and can't send biscuits right," he 
snorted. Then he left the bridge and dived below to 
where a rather bored kitten and the gunnery lieu- 
tenant were amusing themselves with a piece of 
string and a ball of paper. " Message from Z. 'j'j, 

233 



234 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

sir," said the signalman, standing in the ward-room 
door. " Received 9.27 a.m. Will give you two 
biscuits and knock spots off you. — Tubby." For a 
moment the lieutenant looked as puzzled as the 
signalman at the message. Suddenly its meaning 
dawned on him. " Say that I will pick up Lieu- 
tenant Watkins in five minutes," he said, " and, by 
the way, that word wasn't biscuits. You let your 
mind run on food too much, Semple." 

A little later a cutter called at Z. 77 and took the 
two officers and their golf clubs ashore. As they 
landed on the narrow beach a tall major of marines 
sauntered down and gazed with open hostility at the 
kit of clubs slung over each shoulder. He addressed 
the gunnery lieutenant. " What were you doing in 
the Great War, daddy ? " he said mildly, and 
departed under a shower of small pebbles. The 
marine officer had to work, so it was entirely a case 
of sour grapes with him. 

An extraordinary thing is this craze for strenuous 
amusement possessed by the average Briton. On 
the way up to the first tee the golfers passed a foot- 
ball ground where twenty-two brawny " matlows " 
were sweating and puffing in the endeavour to force 
a ball between two upright posts. Yesterday most 
of these men had come tearing through the Cattegat 
with an excellent chance of striking anything from a 
mine to a "U " boat on the run. They had had but 
little rest in the last three days, and normally they 
should have been sleeping the sleep of the just. It 
is the same behind the lines in France. The natural 



GOLFERS FROM THE SEA 235 

antidote for hard work and overstrained nerves is 
hard play, and so these men, who should by rights 
turn in to their bunks and hammocks directly they 
come back to harbour, don flannels or shorts, and 
spend lavishly all the energy that has been left to 
them after a week of watching in North Sea weather. 
As our two golfers tramp the links the commander 
of the Outrageous is stretched full length amongst 
the heather lining the bank of one of the Highland 
streams ten miles away. Below him in a deep brown 
pool is such a trout as will make his reputation in the 
ward-room for all time, and he is painfully wriggling 
to a position from which he can lob his fly gently into 
the ripple above. 

The submarine man's drive from the first tee is 
long and low, with a run that takes him within easy 
mashie shot of the green. The gunner's ball rises 
at an angle of about sixty degrees to an extraordinary 
height, and falls to earth so close to the tee that its 
thud as it hits the turf is distinctly audible. " That," 
says he pensively, " must be my maximum eleva- 
tion. ' ' And so they play light-hearted as schoolboys. 
Their golfing talk is mixed with the queer jargon of 
the Navy. " Guns " calls his cleek his secondary 
armament, and the other man talks in a like way. 
" I will now submerge," he says, as he faces his ball 
in an attempt to hole a five-foot putt. But he 
doesn't. At a blind hole " Guns " is again troubled. 
" These indirect drives are the very devil. It's like 
smacking away at Maidos over about ten miles of 
Gallipoli." He had been on the bombarding 



236 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

squadron out there. It is only a nine-hole course, 
so when they have played once round they start 
00 again. 

At the sixth tee a perspiring orderly appears with 
a message. The submarine man reads it and groans. 
" I'm off," he says, and off he is, leaving " Guns " to 
finish his game alone. . . . 

Well out in the North Sea an ugly craft wallows 
in the swell. She has an assignation with a small 
black-funnelled destroyer that presently appears. 
Bashfully the submarine sinks below the waves like 
some coy maiden discovered bathing. Her periscope 
alone remains above the surface. The former golfer 
is standing with his eye glued to the lens of the 
graticuled periscope sight. He is satisfied, and 
suddenly there is a thud and a rush that tells that a 
torpedo has started on its way. The tanks are filled, 
and the boat submerges completely, waiting for the 
concussion of the water that should follow. She 
stays down the allotted time for the range, but 
nothing happens, and slowly she rises again to the 
surface. As the periscope prism gets above the 
water and catches the target in its field, the golfer 
looks disgustedly at the smudge of smoke that marks 
the retreating destroyer. 

" Sliced, begad ! " he says, and gives the order to 
return to harbour. 

That night, in the ward-room where he is dining 
as a guest, the commander tells the tale of a Brob- 
dignagian trout that dallied with a coachman and 
toyed with a blue drake, until by wonderful strategy 



GOLFERS FROM THE SEA 237 

it was hooked, only to get free after a Titanic 
struggle. " My fish got away, too," muses the 
submarine man, but he doesn't tell his story. It 
is a commonplace beside the commander's. 



THE COAST-GUARD 

If you win through an African jungle, 
Unnoticed at home in the Press, 

Heed it not, no man seeth the piston, 
But it driveth the ship none the less. 

The Ward-room Litany. 

WAR saw us unprepared on land, and but 
partly prepared on sea, but mechanical 
genius and general adaptability have made up for 
our unpreparedness to an extent that one only 
realizes after a visit to the East Coast defences. 

Before the war a fishing town basked in the 
sunshine of prosperity. Rich harvests from the sea 
brought comfort to these hardy fishermen. Now 
their harvest is a grimmer one and they rake the seas 
for the spawn of death ; mines and torpedoes are 
their catches, and hardship and incessant watching 
their lot. 

Not all the craft boast a tonnage of thousands, 
but they are none the less important. Lining the 
quays there is a fleet that boasts no grey paint, and 
there is not enough brass there to make a candlestick. 
The skippers of these vessels have no gold lace on 
cap or sleeve. They wear canvas jackets, occa- 

238 



THE COAST-GUARD 239 

sionally they boast earrings, and their hands are 
rough with the salt rime and the handling of the sea 
harvest. These are the trawlers, his Majesty's 
trawlers, the men who gather in the sowings of the 
German submarines and minelayers Since March 
they have accounted for 460 German mines, and 
they are proud of their work. 

There is a man on this coast, a Galahad of the 
fishermen. His name matters not, but he is the 
skipper of the King Stephen. He is a hard man, 
and he speaks of the Germans as he would speak of 
scorpions. He made up his mind that he would 
wage his part of the war as war, and " God help the 
Germans whom he met." In good time he did meet 
a German, several of them, in a " U " boat. He 
opened fire at short range, for the enemy had not 
held him in much esteem, but had made suggestions 
about " taking to boats." The skipper of the 
trawler had other views, and his first round swept a 
sailor from the deck of the submarine with one leg 
less than Nature gave him. His third, fourth, and 
fifth struck the conning tower, and the enemy sank 
slowly, leaving bubbles and oily patches on the 
smooth sea. There were other submarines about, 
and the skipper of the trawler gave orders to make 
off, but above his orders sounded the wail of the 
wounded German sailor, and the skipper forgot his 
hatred, hearing the call of one man to another. 
Without stopping to deliberate he went over the side 
to rescue his erstwhile foe, and he brought him safely 



240 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

on board. What do the men who shelled our help- 
less " E " boat's crew in the Baltic think of this ? 

At the beginning of the war it was soon seen that 
it would be necessary to keep an open channel for 
shipping. A safe trade route must be kept clear. 
Hence this trawler fleet was organized, and in these 
last twenty-two months 21,000 ships used this 
channel, and of the ones that kept to orders and 
obeyed instructions only three met mishap. 

Indiscriminate mine-laying was always a devilish 
device, but the German has excelled his master. 
Now he lays mines from submarines, and to do this 
these vessels need not come to the surface. They 
can creep to a trade route, fathoms below the ken of 
watching patrols, there to spew up these engines of 
destruction. The German mine is of ingenious 
construction and depends on six soft metal horns for 
detonation. Inside these horns are bottles contain- 
ing sulphuric acid. On contact with a ship's hull 
the horns bend and the bottles break, liberating the 
acid, which indirectly causes the explosion. 

When a mine is found it is treated with deference, 
and any tendency towards affectionate approaches 
is discountenanced with a boat-hook. It is not 
always that these fishermen realize their potentiali- 
ties, however, and not long ago an earringed salt of 
the old school made a tow-rope fast to one of these 
detonating horns and towed it fourteen miles to 
harbour, where he delivered it to the authorities, who 
watched the latter part of his performance aghast. 
Yet another of his kind retrieved a mine and brought 



THE COAST-GUARD 241 

it into harbour. He took it alongside a cruiser there 
and proudly announced his discovery. " Take the 
thing away from here," shouted the horrified officer 
of the watch. " It bean't dangerous," countered 
the discoverer. " Oi've been and knocked off all 
them spoiks with a boat-'ook." And he had. 

Cheek by jowl with the trawlers lay a grey-painted 
mother ship to a fleet of submarines clustered around 
her affectionately. A smiling officer invited inspec- 
tion of his ewe-lamb. " It's really quite roomy 
when you know your way about," he said, " and the 
motion's delightful." A submarine is an elongated 
cigar-shaped metal case. The man who designs her 
fills her full, quite full, of machinery. He then 
remembers that he has to put twenty-two men in 
her and he takes out some of the machinery, leaving 
three spaces about 6 feet square, always taking care 
there shall be sufficient excrescences to make the 
men careful how they walk. In the largest space, 
referred to airily as the mess, there is an electric 
stove that would delight a housewife. The stove 
naturally suggests that it is for cooking when sub- 
merged, but the commander dispels the theory. 
" The men would like to cook," he says, " but you 
can't have the reek of cabbage and stew when you're 
below ; our ordinary stinks are enough." 

Above the fish-backed structure called a deck a 
voice is heard remarking carefully that he is off on 
a " stunt " in an hour's time. What he means is 
that he will leave harbour and make for the open sea 
in the direction of the enemy coast. He will perhaps 



242 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

submerge and nose his way, all by sense of touch, 
through German minefields, and at the end lie 
" doggo " on the bottom with the shadows of the 
War Lord's cruisers playing on his hull. In his own 
time he will rise, and when his periscope prism breaks 
the surface he will have perhaps five seconds to form 
his course of future action. 

Quiet, unassuming men these that go under the 
sea in ships. They do things that would wreck a 
soldier's nerves in an hour, but they literally " come 
up smiling," perhaps a little tired-eyed and with 
throbbing temples, but without an idea that they are 
doing more than their duty. 



THE BATTLE CRUISERS 

THERE are those who lament the loss of all that 
is beautiful on the sea, and scathingly compare 
the modern Liverpool tramp with the three-decker 
of long ago. They ask you to look at the peeling 
paint and rusty sides, the squat masts and canted 
derricks, and against these they hold up the white 
decks and whiter sails, the yellow masts and yards 
of the ships of long ago. And comparison finds the 
palm awarded to the old-timer. 

But there is a new beauty, a beauty of strength 
and power and speed that has been given us in the 
modern war- vessel. In a northern port the morning 
mists rise slowly, unevenly, and through the uncer- 
tain haze the lead-coloured silhouettes of great 
ships loom up. These are no walls of oak. They 
are gun emplacements of steel, ponderous and for- 
bidding if you will, but with a beauty of their own. 
And as the haze lifts the eye lifts with it, following a 
vista of ships as far as sight may carry. Unwieldy 
funnels, tripod masts, fire-control platforms, hellish 
weapons in steel fortresses appear in long lanes. 

It is as though the curtain had been unrolled to 

243 



244 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

show the very incarnation of war, the climax of 
man's devilish ingenuity. It is a city of steel with 
its streets, its squares, and its byways, the home of 
many souls. High above these floating fortresses 
spider-web wires stretch from mast to mast, the 
nerves of this huge fleet. On the quarter-deck of 
one ship a man walks meditatively, his hands 
clasped behind him. He is very much a man. True 
he has an extra inch of gold lace on his sleeve, the 
breast of his blue tunic is brightened by coloured 
ribbons ; but he is a man who might pass unnoticed 
amongst his fellows. Yet at a word from him 
200,000 tons of steel is galvanized into life, huge 
screws churn the water, and the bow waves of many 
ships froth up to the hawse-pipes as " The Fleet " 
puts to sea. He gives the word, and the spider-web 
wires catch the distant spark and sputter of his 
signals. He is the brain of the Fleet, and the nerves 
of steel transmit his desire for action to this city upon 
the waters. 

It oppresses, as a dream oppresses, and the im- 
mensity of it all is too great to grasp at a moment's 
notice. 

A brisk destroyer glides down the Channel like the 
pilot fish to some huge shark following behind, and 
a cruiser in all her pompous might, ominous, threaten- 
ing, crowds close on her heels. She is grey from 
masthead to water-line, and her monotony of tone is 
accentuated by the gaily coloured string of bunting 
that flutters upon her signal halyards. As she 
passes, a flash of light from the bridge winks through 



THE BATTLE CRUISERS 245 

the thinner mists as a searchlight stutters out a 
message to the smaller fry. Forward, amidships, 
and aft, great guns in pairs explain the reason of her 
being. In the old sense of the word this is no ship : 
rather a floating platform for huge weapons that 
throw 2,000 lb. of steel for ten or fifteen miles when 
one man tightens his finger on the brass pistol grip 
in her turrets. 

Sheer sides, flat decks shorn of projections, and 
guns, always guns, are her outstanding features. It 
seems ridiculous to think that she floats at all, this 
great dead weight of metal. A bugle rings out 
short and sharp, and bare feet patter on steel ladders 
and wooden decks. Her hatches and companions 
vomit men. A wailing whistle, the seemingly 
ineffective pipe of the boatswain, conveys more than 
words. Six hundred men have been told in six 
unmusical notes what is wanted of them. 

Up on the bridge the midshipman of the watch is 
filling in time talking to a friend about his last dance 
on shore. The decorous arms of the semaphore 
spell out the details of a scene laid in a conservatory 
in which figure a midshipman, a peche Melba, and a 
girl. The yeoman of signals is writing near the 
telegraph, and the squeak of his pencil on the slate 
seems incongruous. 

Far below a lieutenant mounts a bar-runged ladder 
to the top of " Q " turret and disappears through the 
steel canopy. Three men follow him. Inside there 
is the roar and rattle of moving machinery. The eye 
fails again. Levers, wheels, voice-tubes, and dials 



246 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

fill all the wall space and much of the interior. The 
lieutenant bends down and turns a wheel. From a 
pit below comes the clang of metal on metal, and a 
massive lift tosses a shell 62 inches long towards the 
breech of the port gun, a thing of steel and brass 
5 feet through. The breech opens with a half turn, 
and then one realizes that the devil must be in this 
machinery. With a rush, a chain rammer roars up 
from its vertical position behind the gun. It is like 
the chain of a bicycle, only its links are 6 inches 
through and are made to bend only one way, like a 
man's fingers. From the perpendicular it runs along 
horizontally, propelling the mighty projectile into 
the gaping maw of the waiting gun. 

The process is repeated, but this time the rammer 
pushes in behind the shell the two great silk bags of 
cordite which send the ton of steel on its way. The 
last is sent home, the breech swings on its hinge and 
slowly turns, locking with the turning. A man 
approaches with a metal tube, not a span long, and 
inserts it in the breech centre. All is quiet again 
save for the noise of the hydraulic machinery and 
the overflow of the orders shouted into the copper- 
mouthed voice-tubes. There is a terrifying roar, 
none the less fearful for the fact that it is sustained 
and muffled, and the huge gun darts back with the 
recoil of the explosion. More slowly still it resumes 
its normal position, and almost before it has stopped 
its forward motion there is another shell waiting for 
the breech to open. And that is war — from one end. 
At the other there are the gaping decks, the blood- 



THE BATTLE CRUISERS 247 

stained floors and walls, the inrush of water, and the 
death cries of men made in the Creator's image. 

Above the voice of the range-taker calls the 
ranges. " Ten eight hundred, ten eight-fifty, ten 
nine hundred," he calls monotonously, and one 
realizes that miles away is an enemy for which are 
destined these bolts of fire. 

It is not always that these great ships steam self- 
confident down the Channel. Sometimes they come 
limping back to port, decks aslant and scarred, 
and then it is that the great dock caissons are opened 
and they go to sick bay. Ten years ago the plover 
and the tern circled above the low, flat banks of this 
great northern river. Where once was heard only 
the cry of the waterfowl there is now a mighty naval 
dockyard. Men have delved huge pits in the black 
mud and lined them with stone and mortar. Chang- 
ing banks have been stayed and shored with granite, 
and the insane chatter of the pneumatic riveters has 
driven the whaup to the lowland moss hags. A 
huge steel door slowly swings open to admit a ship 
that has " gone sick." With infinite patience and 
care she is warped into her place, her stem pointing 
to the exact centre of the far wall of the dock. 
By evening, propped and shored, she is revealed in 
all her immensity, her swelling hull, her great 
screws, the overhanging flare of her bows giving one 
the idea of force and speed. Far below in the dock 
bottom pygmies with sledge-hammers shore up the. 
keel blocks with wedges. In this huge pit the 
Archbishop of York addressed 80,000 sailors, and 



248 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

they seemed to occupy but a small portion of the 
space. Giant props from hull to dock-sill take her 
weight, and in the great machine shops men are 
slaving under acres of glass roof, cutting, bending, 
and drilling the plates. 

Thousands of men are working round these docks. 
There seems no particular control. Looking for a 
foreman one is perplexed to find that there is 
apparently no one in authority. In reality there 
is the closest supervision, and not a rivet is ham- 
mered in but what the work is checked and tested. 

A short, heavily-built figure walks briskly along 
the caisson top. His hair is grey, but his stride is 
young. He typifies energy, and his voice is one of 
those voices which were made for the time of Peter 
Simple. It rings clear above the din of machinery as 
it would above the noise of a thirty-knot gale. It is 
a voice that is meant to give orders above the crack 
of bellying sails and the snap of halyards on yards 
and masts. This is the man for whom all this 
machinery starts its agitated chatter. It is at his 
bidding that the men swinging the heavy hammers in 
the dock are sweating, and when one sees him one 
scarcely wonders at the prodigious activity of it all. 
This man is a surgeon of metal, a dispenser for all 
the ills a ship is heir to. They come to him halt 
and maimed and go away cured. 

As with the Fleet the vastness of it all finds one 
at a loss. Roget's Thesaurus has not synonyms 
enough to express its bigness or the infinite variety 
of its detail. There are machines that gibber at 



THE BATTLE CRUISERS 249 

you as they chip away bronze and iron as a wood- 
carver would cut kauri pine. There is one that 
chews steel plate and spits the fragments at your 
feet ; another that cuts clean holes through half- 
inch steel as an office punch cuts papers for filing. 
A saw-toothed ribbon of steel bites deep into a 
half-foot rod with the ease of a boy's fretsaw cutting 
cedar. And the men working all these things talk 
to each other and carry on a conversation amidst a 
maniacal clatter that beats on the ear-drums like a 
masseur's vibrator. 

Not all the work is done above in the sun's light. 
By the entrance to a great dock two men turn 
unceasingly at the wheels on either side of a brass- 
bound box from which a pipe leads into the water. 
Twenty feet from the boat in which this air pump 
is being worked the water is constantly disturbed by 
streams of bursting bubbles. A diver is below 
removing debris that is blocking the caisson, the dock 
door. Presently he emerges, heavily lifting his 40 
lb. leaden-soled boots from the water. Again it is 
the Navy at work, ubiquitous " Jacks of all trades," 
but masters of them all. Specialization is the 
essence of this ubiquity, but it is not carried too far, 
and the man who takes down the engine of the 
steam pinnace to-day may be sending 2,000 lb. of 
metal towards the War Lord's Fleet to-morrow. 
" All cats catch mice on these ships," says the 
Admiral. In action the padre, his clergyman's 
collar contrasting strangely with the war machinery 
at his hand, gives out the ranges, and his voice does 



250 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

not change. But for the fact that there are no 
hymns numbered " ten eight hundred " he might be 
thumbing the leaves of Ancient and Modern. 

And so we leave this harbour of Mars, but we go 
away in a different frame of mind from that in 
which we came. When we wax patriotic and 
musical we sing that Britannia rules the waves. It 
may be cheap sentiment, but patriotism is like golf, 
the man who is playing the game can boast about it 
without bad taste. Over all is the idea that this is 
but the flying squadron of the great Armada of 
Britain. We may not rule the waves as yet, but our 
glass is rising, and when the pointer shows " stormy " 
we may rest assured that to us, at any rate, no harm 
will come as long as the morning mists rise above 
this great grey Fleet. 



BUILDING THE WARSHIPS 

IT is the Glorious First of June. One hundred 
and twenty-two years ago to-day the English 
Fleet under Lord Howe cleared its decks for action. 
Gun ports were opened, powder was brought up from 
below, and the gunners, stripped to the waist, passed 
the round shot from hand to hand, from lazarette to 
the batteries. The day ended with victory. 

To-day, nearly a century and a quarter after- 
wards, England is fighting side by side with her foe 
of the First of June. The decks of her ships are 
again cleared for action, but they are different ships 
these. The walls of oak are gone. We now have 
walls of steel. 

Have you ever lain awake in your bunk in a 
steamer and thought of all the work that must go to 
the building of such a vessel ? You listen to the 
throb of the screws, the squeaking of the hull as it 
takes the strain of the heavy seas, the steady rhyth- 
mic beat of the engines. Above your bed the steel 
plates are neatly riveted, and you wonder who it is 
that puts the ship together and unites all the multitu- 
dinous parts that form its entity. It is easy for the 

251 



252 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

layman to think out the making of each separate 
particle of such a construction, but it is the combining 
of them that seems almost beyond the power of 
mortal man. I have seen on the Tyne and the Clyde 
the men who do these things and more : the men 
who build and equip the fleets of Britain. The 
merchantman is a work of months, and the brains 
of many men go to her making, but the battleship 
is as different from the tramp as is an alarm clock 
from a ship's chronometer. The man who builds a 
battleship has to build a hull that has to stand not 
only the strains of the seas, but the titanic forces of 
the great guns, and the energy of engines equal to 
the horse-power of a fleet of tramps. 

By the river bank is a towering mass of steel and 
iron. It is almost, not quite, a battleship. She 
has been launched from the ways about a month, 
and now a hive of workmen swarm about her tall 
sides and buzz and clatter in the great hull. She is 
the embodiment of all that man has put into this 
business of killing his fellows that he has taken up so 
seriously of late years. The bows, as sharp as a 
knife, curve upwards until one would almost think 
that she must topple over. She looks as if she was 
made to cut the seas and spurn them past her sides, 
and in reality that is what she will do. Her decks are 
iron, for all wood planking has long ago been dis- 
carded. A shell landing on wooden decks would 
start fires, and for this reason these new decks are of 
steel. 

Looking from the bridge to the bows one is im- 



BUILDING THE WARSHIPS 253 

pressed with the enormous length of these ships. 
From her gun turrets to the flagstaff on her bows 
there is nothing to take away from this effect. Not 
a winch or a fan intake breaks the clear space. To 
the outsider this seems the embryo stage of a ship. 
It is not. We have seen the real beginning of a 
warship. She begins her being on paper, and from 
the paper plans are made wooden models of her 
many parts. Then one sees the vessel in molten 
form as the glowing crucibles spill the running metal 
into the moulds. At this stage turbine castings, 
gear wheels, and bed plates begin to take some sort 
of shape, and from now onward they never vary 
much. They come from the moulds rough castings 
and go through many stages before they are assem- 
bled, but each unit has now its final shape. A wood- 
worker's shop is in some respects not much different 
from these huge foundries and metal mills. There 
are planing machines, drills, punching machines, and 
saws, all counterparts of those used by the joiner, 
with the difference that for metal-working they are 
all built with one idea, the idea of strength, and they 
are in all cases many times larger than their proto- 
types of the joinery. 

These are the beginnings of a ship. The clumsy 
hull on the river side is really the last stage but one. 
It is finished as to its shell, and now waits for its 
furnishings of guns and engines. The sheer sides are 
red with paint, put on, surely, by some post- 
impressionist, and the steel plates still bear the chalk 
marks of the man who fitted all this conglomeration 



254 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

of metals together. In the shops a man chalks 
mystic hieroglyphics on a steel plate, and with that 
writing the plate becomes part of a ship. Where 
you now see a few letters and numbers, you know 
that in a week or so there will be a gun-mounting, a 
range-finder, or a fire hydrant. I envied that man 
with the chalk. It must be satisfying to walk over 
these huge hulls and with a movement of the fingers 
decide where even a ring-bolt must go. 

The spectator looking at this prodigious activity 
would think that all the industry of the river must be 
centred here, but he would be very wrong. For 
nineteen miles the waterway is given over to the 
forge and the workshop. Steaming up the river one 
goes through a lane of giant slipways and huge 
scaffoldings. Spidery cranes tower above the roofs, 
or run backwards and forwards on overhead railways. 
It is an astonishing thing about the really big crane, 
that the greater the weight that it can lift, the more 
topheavy and unsubstantial it looks. One sees loads 
of 200 tons being transported the length of a ship- 
yard on a wire, so thin that it is almost invisible from 
a little way off, suspended from a trellis work of steel 
that seems as if it would collapse if a high wind 
caught it. At one of these yards is a crane that will 
lift an express locomotive from the Tyne high-level 
bridge ! For nineteen miles this waterway is 
dedicated to Vulcan. On either bank the hulls of 
ships of war are building, and above hangs the 
smoke pall from the countless furnaces. 

Two years ago this river was the centre of the 



BUILDING THE WARSHIPS 255 

great shipbuilding industry, but it was war that 
made it as it is now. On some of the stocks there 
are hulls begun in 1914. They are still unfinished, 
for they are merchantmen, and take a second place 
to the ships of His Majesty's Navy. Not all the 
vessels building are vessels of war, however. Cheek 
by jowl with a pair of destroyers is a ship of a class 
unknown in British waters. It is an ice-breaker for 
our Ally Russia, and as it stands with its ribs ex- 
posed, a skeleton of a ship, one can get some idea of 
its enormous strength. Its ribs are twice as thick 
as those of an ordinary vessel, and under the bows 
there is a giant propeller that will cut the thick 
pack ice as a carpenter's auger cuts soft wood. With 
this the vessel will literally plough through the white 
seas where no other class of ship could venture. 

Every conceivable type of craft is on the stocks 
here. There are submarines that make Jules Verne's 
Nautilus look like a toy boat on the Kensington 
Round Pond. This war has seen the usefulness of 
the small craft, and in consequence they are building 
everywhere. Every yard is building destroyers, and 
they do not take long to build. In one yard there is 
a skeleton of a ship that will be sailing what some 
maps still call the German Ocean in less than two 
months. The work goes on always, and never for 
a minute does the din and clatter cease. As dark- 
ness falls flares are lit, and dawn sees tired men still 
bearing their weight on drills and riveters after hours 
of heavy labour. 

Farther up the river is a yard where shells are 



256 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

made as well as ships. Before the war this firm 
employed 1,200 men at this work, now they have 
25,000 men and girls on their pay-rolls. Besides 
the men workers there are 13,000 girls in the shops, 
controlling automatic and semi-automatic shell- 
making machinery. 

The shops themselves are airy and well lighted 
where the women work, but no amount of ventila- 
tion would make some of the bays comfortable for 
a layman. With astonishing persistence the British 
workman works in temperatures that put the Sahara 
in the shade, and he never doffs a garment. Men 
dressed in full suits, with a sweater and extra waist- 
coat to boot, swing giant cauldrons of molten metal 
about as if they were cold and were trying to restore 
their circulation. Here is the shop where the 15- 
inch shells are made. In one corner a blast furnace 
heats the great steel ingots and spits them forth 
when they reach a proper temperature. 

Two sweating devils, armed with giant pincers, 
bear down on the red-hot mass and affix chains to it. 
There is a roar from overhead as the travelling crane 
gets under way and the ponderous ingot is swung 
away through the air, leaving a trail of sparks in its 
wake like some leisurely meteor. Two more devils 
with tongs seize it and slide it up-ended into a 
cylindrical slot. A wheel is turned and a great 
punch comes steadily down into the soft metal mass, 
pushing its way into it as though it were soft dough. 
Now the ingot is beginning to take shape ; it is 
getting more like the conventional shell. It is like 



BUILDING THE WARSHIPS 257 

an elongated thimble as it swings away to the draw- 
ing machine. Here, as the name of the operation 
implies, the shell is stretched until it is over 5 feet 
in length. It is again punched before it is allowed to 
leave the shop for the place where it is put on a lathe. 
Here the dull oxydized outer skin is peeled off in 
much the same way as an apple-peeler takes the skin 
from an apple. There is a man to look after this 
lathe, but his presence seems superfluous. The 
lathe has long ago made up its mind how much 
metal is to come off this particular shell, and when 
it thinks it has done enough it stops with a satisfied 
grunt. All the time the cutting is going on a jet of 
water is playing on the cutting tool, and so hot does 
this get that the water seethes and bubbles as it 
touches it. These shells weigh 14 lb. short of the 
2,000 when they are finished. This is no secret, for 
our enemies have felt the weight of some of them ! 
Out of every batch of ten, one is cut for testing 
purposes. Some of the tools for the boring and 
" lining " of these larger projectiles weigh 24 tons. 

On another floor the weapons that are destined to 
hurl these missiles are made. One is confronted 
with a hopeless nightmare of figures and calculations, 
but one fact is worth noting. The modern big gun 
is made with a core of solid steel around which is 
wound steel wire. On the biggest guns in use now 
there are between 140 and 170 miles of this wire ! 

Now all you people who have not seen these things 
take warning and remember yourself in time when 
you are next tempted to say, " What are we doing 



258 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

in the way of building ships ? Why haven't we got 
submarines and other craft like the Germans ? " 
Such doubtings are worse than heresy. They are 
rank injustice, for up there in the North there are 
men who are giving you their very life-blood that 
you should be free. There is one firm there that 
has given the Government engines representing 
1,000 indicated horse-power per day since the 
beginning of the year. To do that the men with the 
brains had to work long into the nights, the men 
who used their hands had to sweat and toil for long 
shifts, but they have achieved their object, and will 
be able to say to themselves, " We have done our 
best." 



THE GRIST HOUSE 

[With acknowledgments for suggestions received at 
The Gift House, 48 Pall Mall.] 

EVELYN has got some steady congenial work 
at last. She is helping at the Grist House, 
where they receive and sell gifts for the benefit 
of a great and deserving charity. She is engaged in 
selling other people's property at prices that draw 
even the dealers. In the Grist House you can buy 
anything from a Great Dane dog to a lock of hair 
from the head of Marie Antoinette's maid-in-waiting. 
All these things are given, or one might almost 
say extorted, from citizens who have spent long 
years in collecting. Evelyn has taken her degree 
in the art of extortion. She goes to a friend's 
house to dinner in London, or in the country for a 
week-end, and comes away with perhaps a hundred 
pounds' worth of pictures, plate, postage stamps, 
pottery, old prints. She takes these to the Grist 
House and tickets them. Every time she is asked 
out she brings grist to the Grist House ; so beware. 
The men and women who hand over these things 
in their generous after-dinner moods often relent 
when they come down to breakfast and look the 

259 



2 6o LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

matter over in the light of day. Then they come 
to the Grist House and buy them back. They 
come up from their country houses disguised and 
wearing false whiskers and false sang-froid. At the 
end of the street they remove the former, and 
the latter falls from them automatically. If they 
are lucky they strike a day when Evelyn is not on 
duty and they are able to buy back their treasures 
at a rate that would seem impossible if they had 
time to think about it at all. If she is there, they 
come in with an air of charity, and end up by buying 
a great many things that they have no use for. 
This is the essence of the business. It is a great 
thing to consolidate the supply and demand in one 
person. If you can persuade a man to give a piece 
of tapestry worth £200 and buy it back at double 
that price, you are exactly £400 to the good. 

I went into the Grist House the other day and 
found Evelyn attired in a holland overall and a 
disarming smile. She started on me before I had 
decided whether to take off my hat or remain 
covered. She tried to sell me a donkey, a Murillo, 
a Spanish scarf, a Roman coin, an autograph 
letter of Louis XV and a pair of boots worn by 
George R. Sims at the coronation of Queen Anne. 
I feigned deafness. 

Then a man came in who was obviously a pur- 
chaser. He sauntered down the length of the 
room and looked all about him. Evelyn was on 
to him like a seagull on to a piece of fish. " Have 
you seen this old glass ? " she asked, and dragged 



THE GRIST HOUSE 261 

him across the floor. He did not seem interested 
in old glass and tried to tell her so, but she was in 
no mood to listen. " This carpet is beautiful, 
isn't it ? " she purred as she turned over a many- 
coloured rug. Still nothing doing. Then she tried 
him with a sauce-boat, a Castilian wedding canopy, 
a meerschaum pipe and a pair of jet earrings. All 
this time he was trying to speak, but he had as much 
chance of getting out three syllables as a Democratic 
candidate at a Republican meeting in Lame Dog 
City, Cal. At last Evelyn stopped and the man 
got a word or two in thin wise. " I've come about 
the electric light," he said. 

Presently she did get a real purchaser. He had 
picked up a Dresden group. " That is most inter- 
esting," said Evelyn impressively ; " it is an ancient 
piece of Ming chinaware, about three hundred 
years before Yuan Shi Kai. Its price is only thirty 
guineas. Shall I wrap it up for you ? " ''I'm 
afraid not," said the man. " You see I presented 
it myself last week. I didn't know it was Chinese, 
though," he said pleasantly. Again Evelyn was 
stumped. 

They have got to such a state of perfection in the 
Grist House that they can tell what a man's income 
is to ten pounds before he has been in a minute. 
If the visitor is really well oft and runs into five 
figures per annum the whole staff of lady-helpers 
rises as one woman and hems him in. For every 
thousand you come down one less assistant gets up. 
When I go in there is never a move, and that is as 



262 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

it should be. Two days ago a man came in wearing 
an anxious look and a Harris tweed suit. He 
looked sT three-figure man at the most, and Evelyn 
got up from her seat and then sat down again 
languidly. The man glanced round the various 
exhibits, and at last looked rather inquiringly at 
Evelyn. She dropped her book and her blase look 
and said sweetly, " Have you come to look round ? " 
The man said he had, and asked the price of a 
diamond necklace. He was told it was two hundred 
and fifty pounds, and Evelyn and I watched to see 
him faint. Instead he drew out his cheque-book 
and said, " Who shall I make out the cheque to ? " 

In five minutes he had the whole staff round him. 
In five more he had bought an Irish terrier, some 
Irish lace and an Irish glass dessert-bowl. Then he 
was shown a fly-whisk, a Maori axe, an amethyst 
intaglio, and a Rembrandt. He signed cheques 
for all these. Then Evelyn tried to sell him his own 
walking-stick, which he had put down in a corner. 
When he left finally he had come to the last cheque 
in his book, and the floor was littered with his 
purchases. 

Then every now and then there are quite imma- 
culately dressed men who stroll in and pick up the 
different articles and put them down again without 
a word. They are obviously dealers in these things, 
and they wear the air of a Sergeant of Grenadiers 
escorting a batch of " Group 40/s " past Wellington 
Barracks. Sometimes they see something that 
pleases them and they allow a little animation to 



THE GRIST HOUSE 263 

creep into their sad faces. Then they take out 
magnifying glasses and gaze long and intently at 
hall-marks and initials. Sometimes they sign 
cheques, too ; but when they do the Grist House 
people know that the sale is not one to be proud of. 
One of the greatest works of the War is being 
carried on at the Grist House, and I have yet to 
meet a man who was not satisfied with a purchase 
made there. Its chief merit to me is that it keep s 
Evelyn busy, and now she need not cut her hair and 
her skirts short and don khaki and a Sam Browne 
belt. Evelyn always does things thoroughly, and 
I am pleased to say that she is just now going through 
her visiting list, putting a mark against all those 
people who have still got some old china or prized 
antiques hidden away. If she has her way all her 
friends will have exchanged their collections amongst 
themselves before the War finishes. Perhaps, when 
peace is declared, they will be able to sort them out 
again. 



PLAYING THE BYE 

THE Ayshire coast curves gently, edged with 
white green-topped sand dunes. Over the 
water, Arran, veiled in mist, lies like some fairy isle, 
fading from view and reappearing as the winds of 
the sea sweep round the channel of Bute Sound and 
curl about Pladda. 

On the mainland of Ayr a rampart of sand keeps 
the sea from the links and protects the greens from 
the salt spray. This is such a course as the best 
golfers love, but it is strangely deserted to-day. A 
gull stands on the first tee undisturbed. No one 
calls " Fore," even the caddy-house is silent. There 
are occasional sounds from the club-maker's work- 
shop, however, and as I peer into the shadowy room 
from the bright sunlight I see a very old man bending 
over his work. ' ' My hands is a wee bit stiff whiles, 
he mutters half apologetically, " but I'll do it wi' the 
best o' them again." And then, bit by bit, he tells 
why it is that he has left the warm chimney-corner 
and come back here to do work that he has not done 
for fifteen years. 

His son was the professional club-maker here, and 
when the war came he had laid aside the spokeshave 
and the rasp and donned the kilt and the khaki 

265 



266 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

tunic. I asked what regiment he had joined. The 
old man's answer was typical. " The Argylls," he 
said, " and what else, him bein' a Campbell ? He 
was trainin' doon in England for six months, and 
then he went tae France for the battle o' Loos. He 
was a sergeant, he was, and he led his men when his 
officer was killed. It was about the evening when 
they brought him in, and there was no' much left o' 
him, for a bit o' a shell had got him in the chest. He 
died there, and I had word from his major a fortnight 
since. He's comin' this forenoon to tell me the way 
he died. And maybe you'd like to stay and hear, 
too, for Jamie liked you fine, and he used to tell me 
that you were a fine one wi' the driver, but awfu' 
weak on the short game." 

Presently the Major came. There are some men 
to whom other men take an instinctive liking at first 
sight. Here was one of them. He was tall, but 
broad, with eyes clear and blue, and thick, close 
hair that curled under the edge of his Glengarry. 
He shook hands with the old man silently, and 
looked inquiringly at me. I rose to go, but old 
Andrew stopped me. " He knew Jamie " was all he 
said. 

Then the Major told the story of the hopelessness 
of an attack that overreached itself. Now and 
again he spoke, as if inspired, of the great heroism 
of his men. " I saw Jamie afterwards, just before 
he went. He was cheery, and not in pain, and he 
asked me to tell you he was happy that he had saved 
for you and you would not want for anything. Just 



PLAYING THE BYE 267 

before he died, when his breath came hardly, he 
said : * Tell father I'm going from the rough to the 
fairway, and that it was a fine game.' " 

The old man laid his head on the bench before him, 
and his silver hair mingled with the clean white 
shavings from the club shafts, but he said nothing, 
and presently he straightened himself and his old 
eyes kindled. " If they'd have me I'd be off and 
away now, but I must just bide here and keep up 
Jamie's wee bit business, e'en though he has left us." 

Again the knotted hands took up their work for a 
while, and the Major signalled to me, and we rose to 
go. " I've got something for ye here," said old 
Andrew, and he rose to fumble in a pile of half- 
finished clubs in the corner of the shop. " It was a 
club that Jamie was makin' fo' ye afore ye both left 
here, but he never finished it. I was puttin' on the 
grip for you last nicht. It was this brassie. No, 
don't be thankin' me, for I did naething but the 
shaft and the grip, though I'll no be savin' they're 
no done well." 

I saw the club as he handed it over. It was a 
bonny head, but the shaft was scored by bad work 
and the grip was lapped and folded as if a child had 
put it on. The waxed threads that bound it were 
all overtwisted and the varnish for the thread had 
run down the leather and the wood and botched it 
sadly. But the old man handed it to the Major as 
if it were the most perfectly finished club in the 
world, and the Major took it in the same way, as if 
it were a king's gift. 



268 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

As we went over to the club-house, I asked the 
Major what he was going to do with his gift. " Of 
course, you will have to get it re-shafted ? " I asked, 
with intention ; and his answer was the one that I 
wanted. " It's worth my whole bag of sticks," he 
said, " and the shaft is the best part of it." 



THE KNEELING HAMLET 

THE dignity and magnificence of a great cathe- 
dral impress and enthral, but the simple 
beauty of a country church appeals to a deeper 
emotion. In time of exile and anguish, when ties 
of home and country tug at our heart-strings, it is 
the little village church that one calls to mind rather 
than the great fane of an abbey or the cloistered 
pile of a cathedral. 

Such a church lingers in my memory. Its grey 
shingled spire rises ; century-old trees and its 
chimes blend, when the wind lists, with the crash of 
the waves on the Sussex shore. It crests its grassy 
rise and is outlined against soft blue English skies. 
Around it cluster the graves of generations, marked 
by stones too age-weary to stand upright, their 
eloquence hidden behind embroideries of green 
moss. For 600 years this little church has stood, 
and despite its grave sweet calm it has seen the 
bloody tides of battle dash very close to its grey 
walls. Bullet holes may be seen in its oaken door, 
relics of a time when it was a sanctuary for broken 
and hunted men. Well and faithfully has it been 

269 



270 LIGHT AND SHADE IN WAR 

built, so well that modern village tools are blunted 
on its oak beams when repairs are necessary. Faith 
and trust, devotion and love, and artistic skill of the 
highest order have made it, and time has mellowed 
all its tints and hung it with vivid emerald. Down 
the long ages it has been the setting of village lives, 
christenings, marriages, burials. Now, after a long 
season of calm, the roar of guns may be heard blend- 
ing with the music of its bells. The world is at 
war, but still Peace stays here, amidst its jewelled 
lights and dim shadows. It is a pax dolorosa, but 
of infinite consolation. 

On the congregation, as in the world outside, the 
war has wrought great changes. It has awakened 
from complacent selfishness to a passionate patriot- 
ism, eager service and a sympathy to which sorrow 
appeals. There are few young men in the pews. 
A crippled lad, who never until now bewailed his 
infirmity, and two wounded soldiers are there, both 
of the parish. One sits beside his widowed mother, 
who has got him home for five precious days. He is 
her only son, but her worn face is almost exultant as 
she sings the National Anthem. Behind her sits a 
girl, wife for a week and now a widow. A keen- 
faced, grey-haired man stands erect, facing the world 
proudly in the knowledge that he has made the great 
sacrifice. He has lost two sons in the North Sea, 
and another, a mere lad, is fretting to serve his 
country. His youth, not his parents' will, prevents 
him, though the beautiful old house now set in its 
summer leaf and flower will be desolate without him. 



THE KNEELING HAMLET 271 

A young mother, between two little sons, puts a 
tender arm about each as they pray for those in 
peril, and she wonders if her gratitude for their 
youth is selfishness. The row of small scouts in the 
front seat are awe-inspiring in their dignity and 
uprightness, and the smallest, who sneezes, is re- 
garded by the others with reproach. They are a 
by-product of the war, and in years to come the 
nation will be richer for the lessons of service, self- 
denial, and patriotism that they are now eagerly 
learning. 

The women of the village, in their scant leisure, 
find time for war work, and even the smallest girls 
crave for tasks to help the soldiers and find pleasure 
in doing them. The service seems to have gained 
in beauty and strength, and the words one has 
repeated all these careless years are now pregnant 
with meaning. The appeal of the prayers, the 
triumph of the militant Psalms, the passionate belief 
in the Resurrection are all intensified in this storm 
of life. What other consolation has squire or 
peasant whose homes are empty ? The little church, 
for all its calm and decorum, is an arena of deep 
emotion, but it is fraught with more than sorrow. 

Into the summer sunshine and the hay-scented 
breezes one carries back to the daily round comfort, 
consolation, and a fresh strength to face anxiety and 
sorrow, and a little of the peace that " passeth all 
understanding." After centuries the little church 
is still the sanctuary where souls, hunted by doubt 
and despair, find peace and rest. 



THE UNBURIED 

(At Anzac, during the Blizzard in the 
Winter of 1915) 

JSJOW snow flakes thickly jailing in the winter 
breeze 

Have cloaked alike the hard unbending ilex 
And the grey drooping branches oj the olive trees, 

Transmuting into silver all their lead. 
Between the winding lines in No-man's-land 
Are softly covered with a glittering shroud 

The unburied dead. 

And in the silences oj night when winds are jair, 
When shot and shell have ceased their wild surprising, 

I hear a sound oj music in the upper air 
Rising and jailing till it slowly dies — 

The beating oj the wings oj migrant birds 

Wafting the souls oj these unburied heroes 
To Paradise. 

FINIS. 



Printed by Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome and London 



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